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But I Am Mistaken In Speaking Of A Christian Republic; The Terms Are Mutually Exclusive. Christianity Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence. Its Spirit Is So Favorable To Tyranny That It Always Profits By Such A Regime. True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves, And They Know It And Do Not Much Mind; This Short Life Counts For Too Little In Their Eyes.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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But I Am Mistaken

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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But I Am Mistaken In Speaking Of A Christian Republic; The Terms Are Mutually Exclusive. Christianity Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence. Its Spirit Is So Favorable To Tyranny That It Always Profits By Such A Regime. True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves, And They Know It And Do Not Much Mind; This Short Life Counts For Too Little In Their Eyes.

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I Also Realized That The Philosophers, Far From Ridding Me Of My Vain Doubts, Only Multiplied The Doubts That Tormented Me And Failed To Remove Any One Of Them. So I Chose Another Guide And Said, Let Me Follow The Inner Light; It Will Not Lead Me So Far Astray As Others Have Done, Or If It Does It Will Be My Own Fault, And I Shall Not Go So Far Wrong If I Follow My Own Illusions As If I Trusted To Their Deceits.

Do To Others As You Would Have Others Do To You, Inspires All Men With That Other Maxim Of Natural Goodness A Great Deal Less Perfect, But Perhaps More Useful: Do Good To Yourself With As Little Prejudice As You Can To Others.

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

The Tone Of Good Conversation Is Brilliant And Natural; It Is Neither Tedious Nor Frivolous; It Is Instructive Without Pedantry, Gay Without Tumultuousness, Polished Without Affectation, Gallant Without Insipidity, Waggish Without Equivocation.

The Training Of Children Is A Profession, Where We Must Know How To Waste Time In Order To Save It.

O Love, If I Regret The Age When One Savors You, It Is Not For The Hour Of Pleasure, But For The One That Follows It.

God Is Intelligent; But In What Manner? Man Is Intelligent By The Act Of Reasoning, But The Supreme Intelligence Lies Under No Necessity To Reason. He Requires Neither Premise Nor Consequences; Nor Even The Simple Form Of A Proposition. His Knowledge Is Purely Intuitive. He Beholds Equally What Is And What Will Be. All Truths Are To Him As One Idea, As All Places Are But One Point, And All Times One Moment.

I Bold It Impossible, That The Great Monarchies Of Europe Can Subsist Much Longer; They All Affect Magnificence And Splendor.

There Are Times When I Am So Unlike Myself That I Might Be Taken For Someone Else Of An Entirely Opposite Character.

A Man Who Is Not A Fool Can Rid Himself Of Every Folly Except Vanity.

We Are Reduced To Asking Others What We Are. We Never Dare To Ask Ourselves.

Ruthless Man: You Begin By Slaying The Animal And Then You Devour It, As If To Slay It Twice. It Is Not Enough. You Turn Against The Dead Flesh, It Revolts You, It Must Be Transformed By Fire, Boiled And Roasted, Seasoned And Disguised With Drugs; You Must Have Butchers, Cooks, Turnspits, Men Who Will Rid The Murder Of Its Horrors, Who Will Dress The Dead Bodies So That The Taste Decieved By These Disguises Will Not Reject What Is Strange To It, And Will Feast On Corpses, The Very Sight Of Which Would Sicken You.

From The First Moment Of Life, Men Ought To Begin Learning To Deserve To Live; And, As At The Instant Of Birth We Partake Of The Rights Of Citizenship, That Instant Ought To Be The Beginning Of The Exercise Of Our Duty.

The Opportunity Of Making Happy Is More Scarce Than We Imagine; The Punishment Of Missing It Is, Never To Meet With It Again; And The Use We Make Of It Leaves Us An Eternal Sentiment Of Satisfaction Or Repentance.

Absolute Silence Leads To Sadness. It Is The Image Of Death.

The Man Is Best Served Who Has No Occasion To Put The Hands Of Others At The End Of His Own Arms.

The Visible Order Of The Universe Proclaims A Supreme Intelligence.

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

The Strength Of The People Is Effective Only If It Is Concentrated; It Evaporates And Is Lost When It Is Dispersed, Just As Gunpowder Scattered On The Ground Ignites Only Grain By Grain.

And When The Relics Of Humanity Left Among The Spaniards Induced Them To Forbid Their Lawyers To Set Foot In America, What Must They Have Thought Of Jurisprudence? May It Not Be Said That They Thought, By This Single Expedient, To Make Reparation For All The Outrages They Had Committed Against The Unhappy Indians?

I Undertake The Same Project As Montaigne, But With An Aim Contrary To His Own: For He Wrote His Essays Only For Others, And I Write My Reveries Only For Myself.

Every Man Has A Right To Risk His Own Life For The Preservation Of It.

The Mechanism She Employs Is Much More Powerful Than Ours, For All Her Levers Move The Human Heart.

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

The Writings Of Women Are Always Cold And Pretty Like Themselves. There Is As Much Wit As You May Desire, But Never Any Soul.

I Hate Books; They Only Teach Us To Talk About Things We Know Nothing About.

Free People, Remember This Maxim: We May Acquire Liberty, But It Is Never Recovered If It Is Once Lost.

People In Their Natural State Are Basically Good. But This Natural Innocence,however, Is Corrupted By The Evils Of Society.

The English People Think They Are Free; They Are Greatly Deceived; They Are Free Only During The Election Of Members Of Parliament.

The Man Who Gets The Most Out Of Life Is Not The One Who Has Lived It Longest, But The One Who Has Felt Life Most Deeply.

The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

Childhood Has It's Own Way Of Seeing, Thinking, And Feeling, And Nothing Is More Foolish Than To Try To Substitute Ours For Theirs.

Laws Are Always Useful To Those Who Possess And Vexatious To Those Who Have Nothing.

But Remain The Teacher Of The Young Teachers. Advise And Direct Us, And We Will Be Ready To Learn. I Will Have Need Of You As Long As I Live.

It Is As If My Heart And My Brain Did Not Belong To The Same Person. Feelings Come Quicker Than Lightning And Fill My Soul, But They Bring Me No Illumination; They Burn Me And Dazzle Me.

Take The Course Opposite To Custom And You Will Almost Always Do Well.

Falsehood Has An Infinity Of Combinations, But Truth Has Only One Mode Of Being.

There Is One Further Distinguishing Characteristic Of Man Which Is Very Specific Indeed And About Which There Can Be No Dispute, And That Is The Faculty Of Self-improvement - A Faculty Which, With The Help Of Circumstance, Progressively Develops All Our Other Faculties.

If I Am Part Of A Group Of 100 People, Do 99 People Have The Right To Sentence Me To Death, Just Because They Are Majority?

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

Everything We Do Not Have At Our Birth And Which We Need When We Are Grown Is Given To Us By Education.

Man Was Born Free, And He Is Everywhere In Chains. Those Who Think Themselves The Masters Of Others Are Indeed Greater Slaves Than They.

Provided A Man Is Not Mad, He Can Be Cured Of Every Folly But Vanity; There Is No Cure For This But Experience, If Indeed There Is Any Cure For It At All.

She Was Dull, Unattractive, Couldn't Tell The Time, Count Money Or Tie Her Own Shoe Laces... But I Loved Her

No True Believer Could Be Intolerant Or A Persecutor. If I Were A Magistrate And The Law Carried The Death Penalty Against Atheists, I Would Begin By Sending To The Stake Whoever Denounced Another.

Plant And Your Spouse Plants With You; Weed And You Weed Alone.

I Hate Books; They Only Teach People To Talk About What They Don't Understand.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

There Exists One Book, Which, To My Taste, Furnishes The Happiest Treatise Of Natural Education. What Then Is This Marvelous Book? Is It Aristotle? Is It Pliny, Is It Buffon? No-it Is Robinson Crusoe.

It Is Not Our Criminal Actions That Require Courage To Confess, But Those Which Are Ridiculous And Foolish.

As Evening Approached, I Came Down From The Heights Of The Island, And I Liked Then To Go And Sit On The Shingle In Some Secluded Spot By The Lake; There The Noise Of The Waves And The Movement Of The Water, Taking Hold Of My Senses And Driving All Other Agitation From My Soul, Would Plunge Me Into Delicious Reverie In Which Night Often Stole Upon Me Unawares.

I Have Never Believed That Man's Freedom Consisted In Doing What He Wants, But Rather In Never Doing What He Does Not Want To Do.

He Who Pretends To Look On Death Without Fear Lies. All Men Are Afraid Of Dying, This Is The Great Law Of Sentient Beings, Without Which The Entire Human Species Would Soon Be Destroyed.

The World Of Reality Has Its Limits; The World Of Imagination Is Boundless.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

At First We Will Only Skim The Surface Of The Earth Like Young Starlings, But Soon, Emboldened By Practice And Experience, We Will Spring Into The Air With The Impetuousness Of The Eagle, Diverting Ourselves By Watching The Childish Behavior Of The Little Men Or Awling Miserably Around On The Earth Below Us.

For, As I Think I Have Said, I Can Only Meditate When I Am Walking. When I Stop I Cease To Think; My Mind Only Works With My Legs.

Every Blue-stocking Will Remain A Spinster As Long As There Are Sensible Men On The Earth. [fr., Toute Fille Lettree Restera Fille Toute Sa Vie, Quand Il N'y Aura Que Des Hommes Senses Sur La Terre.]

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

Too Much Apparatus, Designed To Guide Us In Experiments And To Supplement The Exactness Of Our Senses, Makes Us Neglect To Use Those Senses...the More Ingenious Our Apparatus, The Coarser And More Unskillful Are Our Senses. We Surround Ourselves With Tools And Fail To Use Those Which Nature Has Provided Every One Of Us.

What Good Would It Be To Possess The Whole Universe If One Were Its Only Survivor?

Money Is The Seed Of Money.

I Love Idleness. I Love To Busy Myself About Trifles, To Begin A Hundred Things And Not Finish One Of Them, To Come And Go As My Fancy Bids Me, To Change My Plan Every Moment, To Follow A Fly In All Its Circlings, To Try And Uproot A Rock To See What Is Underneath, Eagerly To Begin A Ten-years' Task To Give It Up After Ten Minutes: In Short, To Fritter Away The Whole Day Inconsequentially And Incoherently, And To Follow Nothing But The Whim Of The Moment.

To Make A Man Richer, Give Him More Money Of Curb His Desires.

Gracefulness Cannot Subsist Without Ease; Delicacy Is Not Debility; Nor Must A Woman Be Sick In Order To Please. Infirmity, And Sickness May Excite Our Pity, But Desire And Pleasure Require The Bloom And Vigor Of Health.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

To Study Men, We Must Look Close By; To Study Man, We Must Learn To Look Afar; If We Are To Discover Essential Characteristics, We Must First Observe Differences.

We Do Not Know Either Unalloyed Happiness Or Unmitigated Misfortune. Everything In This World Is A Tangled Yarn; We Taste Nothing In Its Purity; We Do Not Remain Two Moments In The Same State. Our Affections As Well As Bodies, Are In A Perpetual Flux.

The First Person Who, Having Enclosed A Plot Of Land, Took It Into His Head To Say This Is Mine And Found People Simple Enough To Believe Him Was The True Founder Of Civil Society. What Crimes, Wars, Murders, What Miseries And Horrors Would The Human Race Have Been Spared, Had Some One Pulled Up The Stakes Or Filled In The Ditch And Cried Out To His Fellow Men: "do Not Listen To This Imposter. You Are Lost If You Forget That The Fruits Of The Earth Belong To All And The Earth To No One!

I Don't Know What Is Truth,but I Can Tell You How To Find It!

The Infant, On Opening His Eyes, Ought To See His Country, And To The Hour Of His Death Never Lose Sight Of It.

I Have Never Thought, For My Part, That Man's Freedom Consists In His Being Able To Do Whatever He Wills, But That He Should Not, By Any Human Power, Be Forced To Do What Is Against His Will.

I Will Say Little Of The Importance Of A Good Education; Nor Will I Stop To Prove That The Current One Is Bad. Countless Others Have Done So Before Me, And I Do Not Like To Fill A Book With Things Everybody Knows. I Will Note That For The Longest Time There Has Been Nothing But A Cry Against The Established Practice Without Anyone Taking It Upon Himself To Propose A Better One. The Literature And The Learning Of Our Age Tend Much More To Destruction Than To Edification.

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

War Then, Is A Relation - Not Between Man And Man But Between State And State And Individuals Are Enemies Only Accidentally Not As Men, Nor Even As Citizens But As Soldiers Not As Members Of Their Country, But As Its Defenders

It Is Hard To Prevent Oneself From Believing What One So Keenly Desires, And Who Can Doubt That The Interest We Have In Admitting Or Denying The Reality Of The Judgement To Come Determines The Faith Of Most Men In Accordance With Their Hopes And Fears.

People Who Know Little Are Usually Great Talkers, While Men Who Know Much Say Little.

A Citizen Should Render To The State All The Services He Can As Soon As The Sovereign Demands Them.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

It Has Always Pleased Me To Read While Eating If I Have No Companion; It Gives Me The Society I Lack. I Devour Alternately A Page And A Mouthful; It Is As Though My Book Were Dining With Me.

Jewish Authors Would Never Have Invented Either That Style Nor That Morality; And The Gospel Has Marks Of Truth So Great, So Striking, So Utterly Inimitable, That The Invention Of It Would Be More Astonishing Than The Hero.

I Long Remained A Child, And I Am Still One In Many Respects.

I Believed That I Was Approaching The End Of My Days Without Having Tasted To The Full Any Of The Pleasures For Which My Heart Thirsted...without Having Ever Tasted That Passion Which, Through Lack Of An Object, Was Always Suppressed. ...the Impossibility Of Attaining The Real Persons Precipitated Me Into The Land Of Chimeras; And Seeing Nothing That Existed Worthy Of My Exalted Feelings, I Fostered Them In An Ideal World Which My Creative Imagination Soon Peopled With Beings After My Own Heart.

To Discover The Rules Of Society That Are Best Suited To Nations, There Would Need To Exist A Superior Intelligence, Who Could Understand The Passions Of Men Without Feeling Any Of Them, Who Had No Affinity With Our Nature But Knew It To The Full, Whose Happiness Was Independent Of Ours, But Who Would Nevertheless Make Our Happiness His Concern, Who Would Be Content To Wait In The Fullness Of Time For A Distant Glory, And To Labour In One Age To Enjoy The Fruits In Another. Gods Would Be Needed To Give Men Laws.

Provided A Man Is Not Mad, He Can Be Cured Of Every Folly But Vanity.

Happiness: A Good Bank Account, A Good Cook, And A Good Digestion.

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

There Is No Evildoer Who Could Not Be Made Good For Something.

The World Is The Book Of Women. Whatever Knowledge They May Possess Is More Commonly Acquired By Observation Than By Reading.

But In Some Great Souls, Who Consider Themselves As Citizens Of The World, And Forcing The Imaginary Barriers That Separate People From People.

Each Member Of The Community Gives Himself To It At The Instant Of Its Constitution, Just As He Actually Is, Himself And All His Forces, Including All Goods In His Possession.

All Of My Misfortunes Come From Having Thought Too Well Of My Fellows.

The Social Pact, Far From Destroying Natural Equality, Substitutes, On The Contrary, A Moral And Lawful Equality For Whatever Physical Inequality That Nature May Have Imposed On Mankind; So That However Unequal In Strength And Intelligence, Men Become Equal By Covenant And By Right.

Behold The Works Of Our Philosophers; With All Their Pompous Diction, How Mean And Contemptible They Are By Comparison With The Scriptures! Is It Possible That A Book At Once So Simple And Sublime Should Be Merely The Work Of Man?

There Is Peace In Dungeons, But Is That Enough To Make Dungeons Desirable?

Social Contract

Sovereigns Always See With Pleasure A Taste For The Arts Of Amusement And Superfluity, Which Do Not Result In The Exportation Of Bullion, Increase Among Their Subjects. They Very Well Know That, Besides Nourishing That Littleness Of Mind Which Is Proper To Slavery, The Increase Of Artificial Wants Only Binds So Many More Chains Upon The People.

The Social Compact Sets Up Among The Citizens As Equality Of Such Kind, That They All Bind Themselves To Observe The Same Conditions And Should Therefore All Enjoy The Same Rights.

Peter Had A Genius For Imitation; But He Lacked True Genius, Which Is Creative And Makes All From Nothing.

It Is Not Possible For Minds Degraded By A Host Of Trivial Concerns To Ever Rise To Anything Great.

Heroes Are Not Known By The Loftiness Of Their Carriage; The Greatest Braggarts Are Generally The Merest Cowards.

Finance Is A Slave's Word.

Since Men Cannot Create New Forces, But Merely Combine And Control Those Which Already Exist, The Only Way In Which They Can Preserve Themselves Is By Uniting Their Separate Powers In A Combination Strong Enough To Overcome Any Resistance, Uniting Them So That Their Powers Are Directed By A Single Motive And Act In Concert.

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. Is It Astonishing That Often These Two Languages Contradict Each Other, And Then To Which Must We Listen? Too Often Reason Deceives Us; We Have Only Too Much Acquired The Right Of Refusing To Listen To It; But Conscience Never Deceives Us; It Is The True Guide Of Man; It Is To Man What Instinct Is To The Body; Which Follows It, Obeys Nature, And Never Is Afraid Of Going Astray.

To Endure Is The First Thing That A Child Ought To Learn, And That Which He Will Have The Most Need To Know.

Although Modesty Is Natural To Man, It Is Not Natural To Children. Modesty Only Begins With The Knowledge Of Evil.

Ordinary Readers, Forgive My Paradoxes: One Must Make Them When One Reflects; And Whatever You May Say, I Prefer Being A Man With Paradoxes Than A Man With Prejudices.

Our Affections As Well As Our Bodies Are In Perpetual Flux.

Our Will Is Always For Our Own Good, But We Do Not Always See What That Is; The People Is Never Corrupted, But It Is Often Deceived, And On Such Occasions Only Does It Seem To Will What Is Bad.

There Is No Folly Of Which A Man Who Is Not A Fool Cannot Get Rid Except Vanity; Of This Nothing Cures A Man Except Experience Of Its Bad Consequences, If Indeed Anything Can Cure It.

At Sixteen, The Adolescent Knows About Suffering Because He Himself Has Suffered, But He Barely Knows That Other Beings Also Suffer.

The Empire Of Woman Is An Empire Of Softness, Of Address, Of Complacency. Her Commands Are Caresses, Her Menaces Are Tears.

Remorse Sleeps During A Prosperous Period But Wakes Up In Adversity.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

Yes, If The Life And Death Of Socrates Are Those Of A Wise Man, The Life And Death Of Jesus Are Those Of A God.

Good Laws Lead To The Making Of Better Ones; Bad Ones Bring About Worse.

In The Strict Sense Of The Term, A True Democracy Has Never Existed, And Never Will Exist.

Democracies Have

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

Liberty Is Obedience To The Law Which One Has Laid Down For Oneself

Force Does Not Constitute Right... Obedience Is Due Only To Legitimate Powers.

A Man Says What He Knows, A Woman Says What Will Please.

The English People Believes Itself To Be Free; It Is Gravely Mistaken; It Is Free Only During Election Of Members Of Parliament; As Soon As The Members Are Elected, The People Is Enslaved; It Is Nothing. In The Brief Moment Of Its Freedom, The English People Makes Such A Use Of That Freedom That It Deserves To Lose It.

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

The Thirst After Happiness Is Never Extinguished In The Heart Of Man.

Taste Is, So To Speak, The Microscope Of The Judgment.

Taste And Judgment

Ought To Have A Universal Compulsory Force To Move And Arrange Each Part In The Manner Best Suited To The Whole. Just As Nature Gives Each Man An Absolute Power Over All His Members, The Social Compact Gives The Body Politic An Absolute Power Over All Its Members." "we Grant That Each Person Alienates, By The Social Compact, Only That Portion Of His Power, His Goods, And Liberty Whose Use Is Of Consequence To The Community; But We Must Also Grant That Only The Sovereign Is The Judge Of What Is Of Consequence.

Had I No Other Proof Of The Immortality Of The Soul Than The Oppression Of The Just And The Triumph Of The Wicked In This World, This Alone Would Prevent My Having The Least Doubt Of It. So Shocking A Discord Amidst A General Harmony Of Things Would Make Me Naturally Look For A Cause; I Should Say To Myself We Do Not Cease To Exist With This Life; Everything Reassumes Its Order After Death.

It Is Easier To Conquer Than To Administer. With Enough Leverage, A Finger Could Overturn The World; But To Support The World, One Must Have The Shoulders Of Hercules.

The Political Body, Therefore, Is Also A Moral Being Which Has A Will; And This General Will, Which Tends Always To The Conservation And Well-being Of The Whole And Of Each Part Of It ... Is, For All Members Of The State ... The Rule Of What Is Just Or Unjust.

Those People Who Treat Politics And Morality Separately Will Never Understand Either Of Them.

To Renounce Liberty Is To Renounce Being A Man, To Surrender The Rights Of Humanity And Even Its Duties. For He Who Renounces Everything No Indemnity Is Possible. Such A Renunciation Is Incompatible With Man's Nature; To Remove All Liberty From His Will Is To Remove All Morality From His Acts.

Equality, Because Without It There Can Be No Liberty.

Presence Of Mind, Penetration, Fine Observation, Are The Sciences Of Women; Ability To Avail Themselves Of These Is Their Talent.

Presence Of Mind

The General Will Is Always Right.

It Is A Mania Shared By Philosophers Of All Ages To Deny What Exists And To Explain What Does Not Exist.

Men, In General, Are Not This Or That, They Are What They Are Made To Be.

The World Is Woman's Book. [fr., Le Monde Est Le Livre Des Femmes.]

Love Childhood, Indulge Its Sports, Its Pleasures, Its Delightful Instincts. Who Has Not Sometimes Regretted That Age When Laughter Was Ever On The Lips, And When The Heart Was Ever At Peace?

If All Were Perfect Christians, Individuals Would Do Their Duty; The People Would Be Obedient To The Laws, The Magistrates Incorrupt, And There Would Be Neither Vanity Nor Luxury In Such A State.

Let The Trumpet Of The Day Of Judgment Sound When It Will, I Shall Appear With This Book In My Hand Before The Sovereign Judge, And Cry With A Loud Voice, This Is My Work, There Were My Thoughts, And Thus Was I. I Have Freely Told Both The Good And The Bad, Have Hid Nothing Wicked, Added Nothing Good.

The People Is Never Corrupted, But It Is Often Deceived.

But I Am Mistaken In Speaking Of A Christian Republic; The Terms Are Mutually Exclusive. Christianity Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence. Its Spirit Is So Favorable To Tyranny That It Always Profits By Such A Regime. True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves, And They Know It And Do Not Much Mind; This Short Life Counts For Too Little In Their Eyes.

Never Did I Think So Much, Exist So Much, Be Myself So Much As In The Journeys I Have Made Alone And On Foot. Walking Has Something About It Which Animates And Enlivens My Ideas. I Can Hardly Think While I Am Still; My Body Must Be In Motion To Move My Mind.

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

In Truth, Laws Are Always Useful To Those With Possessions And Harmful To Those Who Have Nothing; From Which It Follows That The Social State Is Advantageous To Men Only When All Possess Something And None Has Too Much.

I Loved Too Sincerely, Too Completely, I Venture To Say, To Be Able To Be Happy Easily.

Generally We Obtain Very Surely And Very Speedily What We Are Not Too Anxious To Obtain.

When A Man Dies He Clutches In His Hands Only That Which He Has Given Away During His Lifetime.

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

We Do Not Know What Really Good Or Bad Fortune Is.

Our Passions Are The Chief Means Of Self-preservation; To Try To Destroy Them Is Therefore As Absurd As It Is Useless; This Would Be To Overcome Nature, To Reshape God's Handiwork. If God Bade Man Annihilate The Passions He Has Given Him, God Would Bid Him Be And Not Be; He Would Contradict Himself. He Has Never Given Such A Foolish Commandment, There Is Nothing Like It Written On The Heart Of Man, And What God Will Have A Man Do, He Does Not Leave To The Words Of Another Man. He Speaks Himself; His Words Are Written In The Secret Heart.

I Would Rather Be A Man Of Paradoxes Than A Man Of Prejudices.

The One Thing We Do Not Know Is The Limit Of The Knowable.

Plants Are Shaped By Cultivation And Men By Education. .. We Are Born Weak, We Need Strength; We Are Born Totally Unprovided, We Need Aid; We Are Born Stupid, We Need Judgment. Everything We Do Not Have At Our Birth And Which We Need When We Are Grown Is Given Us By Education.

I Have Resolved On An Enterprise That Has No Precedent And Will Have No Imitator. I Want To Set Before My Fellow Human Beings A Man In Every Way True To Nature; And That Man Will Be Myself.

He Who Has The Base Necessities Of Life Should Pay Nothing; Taxation On Him Who Has A Surplus May, If Need Be; Extend To Everything Beyond Necessities.

The Problem Is To Find A Form Of Association Which Will Defend And Protect With The Whole Common Force The Person And Goods Of Each Associate, And In Which Each, While Uniting Himself With All, May Still Obey Himself Alone, And Remain As Free As Before.

Luxury Either Comes Of Riches Or Makes Them Necessary; It Corrupts At Once Rich And Poor, The Rich By Possession And The Poor By Covetousness.

Do Not Base Your Life On The Judgments Of Others; First, Because They Are As Likely To Be Mistaken As You Are, And Further, Because You Cannot Know That They Are Telling You Their True Thoughts.

One May Live Tranquilly In A Dungeon; But Does Life Consist In Living Quietly?

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

The Taste For Splendor Is Hardly Ever Combined In The Same Souls With The Taste For The Honorable.

Fame Is But The Breath Of People, And That Often Unwholesome.

In Genoa, The Word, Libertas Can Be Read On The Front Of Prisons And On The Fetters Of Galley-slaves. The Application Of This Motto Is Fine And Just.

Virtue Is A State Of War, And To Live In It We Have Always To Combat With Ourselves.

When My Reason Is Afloat, My Faith Cannot Long Remain In Suspense, And I Believe In God As Firmly As In Any Other Truth Whatever; In Short, A Thousand Motives Draw Me To The Consolatory Side, And Add The Weight Of Hope To The Equilibrium Of Reason.

What Wisdom Can You Find That Is Greater Than Kindness?

The First Step Towards Vice Is To Shroud Innocent Actions In Mystery, And Whoever Likes To Conceal Something Sooner Or Later Has Reason To Conceal It.

I May Not Amount To Much, But At Least I Am Unique.

Patience Patience Quotes Is Bitter, But Its Fruit Is Sweet.

A Paralyzed Man Who Wants To Walk Or An Agile Man Who Does Not Want To Walk Will Both Remain Neutral In Nature.

One Must Choose Between Making A Man Or A Citizen, For One Cannot Make Both At The Same Time.

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

Nothing Is Less In Our Power Than The Heart, And Far From Commanding We Are Forced To Obey It.

The Abuse Of Books Kills Science. Believing That We Know What We Have Read, We Believe That We Can Dispense With Learning It.

The Indifference Of Children Towards Meat Is One Proof That The Taste For Meat Is Unnatural; Their Preference Is For Vegetable Foods...beware Of Changing This Natural Taste And Making Children Flesh-eaters, If Not For Their Health's Sake, For The Sake Of Their Character; For How Can One Explain Away The Fact That Great Meat-eaters Are Usually Fiercer And More Cruel Than Other Men; This Has Been Recognised At All Times And In All Places.

A Blue-stocking Is The Scourge Of Her Husband, Children, Friends, Servants, And Every One. [fr., Une Femme Bel-esprit Est Le Fleau De Son Mari, De Ses Enfants, De Ses Amis, De Ses Valets, Et Tout Le Monde.]

There Are Always Four Sides To A Story: Your Side, Their Side, The Truth And What Really Happened.

The Word ‘slavery’ And ‘right’ Are Contradictory, They Cancel Each Other Out. Whether As Between One Man And Another, Or Between One Man And A Whole People, It Would Always Be Absurd To Say: "i Hereby Make A Covenant With You Which Is Wholly At Your Expense And Wholly To My Advantage; I Will Respect It So Long As I Please And You Shall Respect It As Long As I Wish.

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

Everything Made By Man May Be Destroyed By Man; There Are No Ineffaceable Characters Except Those Engraved By Nature; And Nature Makes Neither Princes Nor Rich Men Nor Great Lords.

For It Is In Our Nature To Endure Patiently The Decrees Of Fate, But Not The Ill-will Of Others.

Civilization Is A Hopeless Race To Discover Remedies For The Evils It Produces.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

At Length I Recollected The Thoughtless Saying Of A Great Princess, Who, On Being Informed That The Country People Had No Bread, Replied, "let Them Eat Cake".

Consolation Indiscreetly Pressed Upon Us, When We Are Suffering Undue Affliction, Only Serves To Increase Our Pain, And To Render Our Grief More Poignant.

The Truths Of The Scriptures Are So Marked And Inimitable, That The Inventor Would Be More Of A Miraculous Character Than The Hero.

By Doing Good We Become Good.

Her Dignity Consists In Being Unknown To The World; Her Glory Is In The Esteem Of Her Husband; Her Pleasures In The Happiness Of Her Family.

In A Well Governed State, There Are Few Punishments, Not Because There Are Many Pardons, But Because Criminals Are Rare; It Is When A State Is In Decay That The Multitude Of Crimes Is A Gaurantee Of Impunity.

What, Then, Is The Government? An Intermediary Body Established Between The Subjects And The Sovereign For Their Mutual Communication, And Charged With The Execution Of The Laws And The Maintenance Of Freedom, Civil As Well As Political.

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

With Children Use Force; With Men Reason; Such Is The Natural Order Of Things. The Wise Man Requires No Law.

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

I May Be No Better, But At Least I Am Different.

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Warren E. Burger

Stephen Vincent Benet

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