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Everything Is In Constant Flux On This Earth. Nothing Keeps The Same Unchanging Shape, And Our Affections, Being Attached To Things Outside Us, Necessarily Change And Pass Away As They Do. Always Out Ahead Of Us Or Lagging Behind, They Recall A Past Which Is Gone Or Anticipate A Future Which May Never Come Into Being; There Is Nothing Solid There For The Heart To Attach Itself To. Thus Our Earthly Joys Are Almost Without Exception The Creatures Of A Moment.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Everything Is In Constant

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Everything Is In Constant Flux On This Earth. Nothing Keeps The Same Unchanging Shape, And Our Affections, Being Attached To Things Outside Us, Necessarily Change And Pass Away As They Do. Always Out Ahead Of Us Or Lagging Behind, They Recall A Past Which Is Gone Or Anticipate A Future Which May Never Come Into Being; There Is Nothing Solid There For The Heart To Attach Itself To. Thus Our Earthly Joys Are Almost Without Exception The Creatures Of A Moment.

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Self-love Is An Instrument Useful But Dangerous; It Often Wounds The Hand Which Makes Use Of It, And Seldom Does Good Without Doing Harm.

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.

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.

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?

It Is In Man's Heart That The Life Of Nature's Spectacle Exists; To See It, One Must Feel It.

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

Never Exceed Your Rights, And They Will Soon Become Unlimited.

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

Chemistry... Is Like The Maid Occupied With Daily Civilisation; She Is Busy With Fertilisers, Medicines, Glass, Insecticides ... For She Dispenses The Recipes.

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

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

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

Leave Those Vain Moralists, My Friend, And Return To The Depth Of Your Soul: That Is Where You Will Always Rediscover The Source Of The Sacred Fire Which So Often Inflamed Us With Love Of The Sublime Virtues; That Is Where You Will See The Eternal Image Of True Beauty, The Contemplation Of Which Inspires Us With A Holy Enthusiasm.

Once You Teach People To Say What They Do Not Understand, It Is Easy Enough To Get Them To Say Anything You Like.

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.

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?

You Are Worried About Seeing Him Spend His Early Years In Doing Nothing. What! Is It Nothing To Be Happy? Nothing To Skip, Play And Run Around All Day Long? Never In His Life Will He Be So Busy Again.

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

In The North The First Words Are, Help Me; In The South, Love Me.

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

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

All Kinds Of Frankness And Honesty Are Terrible Crimes In The Eyes Of Society.

I Have Suffered Too Much In This World Not To Hope For Another.

World Suffering

The English Are Predisposed To Pride, The French To Vanity.

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

Or, Rather, Let Us Be More Simple And Less Vain.

All Through Life A Man Has Need Of A Counsellor And Guide.

I Say To Myself: "who Are You To Measure Infinite Power?

In All The Ills That Befall Us, We Are More Concerned By The Intention Than The Result. A Tile That Falls Off A Roof May Injure Us More Seriously, But It Will Not Wound Us So Deeply As A Stone Thrown Deliberately By A Malevolent Hand. The Blow May Miss, But The Intention Always Strikes Home.

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

Finance Is A Slave's Word.

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

There Is Not A Single Ill-doer Who Could Not Be Turned To Some Good.

Whoever Blushes Is Already Guilty; True Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

The Science Of Government Is Only A Science Of Combinations, Of Applications, And Of Exceptions, According To Times, Places And Circumstances.

If There Wasn't A God We Would Have To Invent One To Keep People Sane.

Nature Wants Children To Be Children Before Men... Childhood Has Its Own Seeing, Thinking And Feeling.

Teach Him To Live Rather Than To Avoid Death: Life Is Not Breath, But Action, The Use Of Our Senses, Our Mind, Our Faculties, Every Part Of Ourselves Which Makes Us Conscious Of Our Being. Life Consists Less In Length Of Days Than In The Keen Sense Of Living. A Man Maybe Buried At A Hundred And May Never Have Lived At All. He Would Have Fared Better Had He Died Young.

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

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.

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

Liberty Is Not To Be Found In Any Form Of Government; She Is In The Heart Of The Free Man; He Bears Her With Him Everywhere.

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

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.

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Best Physicians Of Man; Labor Sharpens The Appetite, And Temperance Prevents From Indulging To Excess

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

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.]

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

I Feel An Indescribable Ecstasy And Delirium In Melting, As It Were, Into The System Of Being, In Identifying Myself With The Whole Of Nature.

The Majesty Of The Scriptures Strikes Me With Admiration, As The Purity Of The Gospel Has Its Influence On My Heart.

I May Not Be Better Than Other People, But At Least I'm Different.

Do I Dare Set Forth Here The Most Important, The Most Useful Rule Of All Education? It Is Not To Save Time, But To Squander It.

It Is Manifestly Contrary To The Law Of Nature, However Defined, That A Handful Of People Should Gorge Themselves With Superfluities While The Hungry Majority Goes In Need Of Necessities.

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.

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.

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

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

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.

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

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.

Whatever May Be Our Natural Talents, The Art Of Writing Is Not Acquired All At Once.

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.

As Long As There Are Rich People In The World, They Will Be Desirous Of Distinguishing Themselves From The Poor.

Christ Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence... True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves.

Women Speak At An Earlier Age, More Easily, And More Agreeably Than Men; They Are Accused Also Of Speaking More; This Is As It Should Be, And I Willingly Change The Reproach Into A Eulogy.

[when Anything Happens, We Interpret It As Good Or Bad, But...] We Do Not Know What Is Really Good Or Bad Fortune. [only The Future Can Decide. For Example, What Appears To Be Bad Today May In Fact Lead Us To A Greater Good Tomorrow And By The Very Act Of Thinking And Planning In That Positive Way, We Can Help Make That Good Future Come True.]

My Bad Head Cannot Adjust Itself To The Way Things Are.... If I Want To Depict Spring, It Has To Be In Wintertime; If I Want To Describe A Beautiful Landscape, I Must Be Enclosed Within Walls; And I Have Said A Hundred Times That If I Were Put In The Bastille, There I Would Paint A Picture Of Liberty.

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

It Is To Law Alone That Men Owe Justice And Liberty. It Is This Salutary Organ, Of The Will Of All Which Establishes In Civil Rights The Natural Equality Between Men. It Is This Celestial Voice Which Dictates To Each Citizen The Precepts Of Public Reason, And Teaches Him To Act According To The Rules Of His Own Judgment And Not To Behave Inconsistently With Himself. It Is With This Voice Alone That Political Leaders Should Speak When. They Command.

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.

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.

To Renounce Freedom Is To Renounce One's Humanity, One's Rights As A Man And Equally One's Duties.

A Child Who Passes Through Many Hands In Turn, Can Never Be Well Brought Up. At Every Change He Makes A Secret Comparison, Which Continually Tends To Lessen His Respect For Those Who Control Him, And With It Their Authority Over Him. If Once He Thinks There Are Grown-up People With No More Sense Than Children The Authority Of Age Is Destroyed And His Education Is Ruined.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

To Write A Good Love Letter, You Ought To Begin Without Knowing What You Mean To Say, And To Finish Without Knowing What You Have Written.

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

He Who Eats In Idleness That Which He Himself Has Not Earned, Steals It; And A Capitalist Whom The State Pays For Doing Nothing Differs Little In My Eyes From A Brigand, Who Lives At The Expense Of Passers-by.

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

If Socrates Died Like A Philosopher, Jesus Christ Died Like A God.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

We Should Not Teach Children The Sciences; But Give Them A Taste For Them.

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

One Thinks Himself The Master Of Others, And Still Remains A Greater Slave Than They.

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

I Had Been Brought Up In A Church Which Decides Everything And Permits No Doubts, So That Having Rejected One Article Of Faith I Was Forced To Reject The Rest.

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

As Soon As Any Man Says Of The Affairs Of The State "what Does It Matter To Me?" The State May Be Given Up For Lost.

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

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

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.

A Born King Is A Very Rare Being.

Social Contract

Great Men Never Make Bad Use Of Their Superiority. They See It And Feel It And Are Not Less Modest. The More They Have, The More They Know Their Own Deficiencies.

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

To Renounce Liberty Is To Renounce Being A Man, To Surrender The Rights Of Humanity And Even Its Duties.

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

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

The General Will Is Always Right.

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.

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.

A Feeble Body Weakens The Mind.

Beware Of Listening To This Impostor; You Are Undone If You Once Forget That The Fruits Of The Earth Belong To Us All, And The Earth Itself To Nobody.

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.

To Abstain That We May Enjoy Is The Epicurianism Of Reason.

War Is Then Not A Relationship Between One Man And Another, But A Relationship Between One State And Another, In Which Individuals Are Enemies Only By Accident, Not As Men, Nor Even As Citizens, But As Soldiers; Not As Members Of The Fatherland, But As Its Defenders. Finally, Any State Can Only Have Other States, And Not Men, As Enemies, Inasmuch As It Is Impossible To Fix A True Relation Between Things Of Different Natures.

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

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.

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.

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

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

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content; That We May Gain This Self-content, We Are Placed Upon This Earth And Endowed With Freedom.

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

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

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.

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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.

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

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

Why Should We Build Our Happiness On The Opinons Of Others, When We Can Find It In Our Own Hearts?

Women, In General, Are Not Attracted To Art At All, Nor Knowledge, And Not At All To Genius.

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

Gratitude Is A Duty Which Ought To Be Paid, But Which None Have A Right To Expect.

Inspirational Christmas

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

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

Teach Your Scholar To Observe The Phenomena Of Nature; You Will Soon Rouse His Curiosity, But If You Would Have It Grow, Do Not Be In Too Great A Hurry To Satisfy This Curiosity. Put The Problems Before Him And Let Him Solve Them Himself. Let Him Know Nothing Because You Have Told Him, But Because He Has Learnt It For Himself. Let Him Not Be Taught Science, Let Him Discover It. If Ever You Substitute Authority For Reason He Will Cease To Reason; He Will Be A Mere Plaything Of Other People's Thoughts.

We Pity In Others Only The Those Evils Which We Ourselves Have Experienced.

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

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

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.

If There Were A Nation Of Gods, It Would Govern Itself Democratically. A Government So Perfect Is Not Suited To Men.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

Every Man Has The Right To Risk His Own Life In Order To Preserve It. Has It Ever Been Said That A Man Who Throws Himself Out The Window To Escape From A Fire Is Guilty Of Suicide?

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.

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

We Can Never Put Ourselves In The Shoes Of Children; We Cannot Fathom Their Thoughts, We Lend Them Ours; And Always Following Ourown Reasoning, We Stuff Their Heads With Extravagance And Error.

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

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?

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

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

Presence Of Mind

Government Originated In The Attempt To Find A Form Of Association That Defends And Protects The Person And Property Of Each With The Common Force Of All.

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.

The Money That We Possess Is The Instrument Of Liberty, That Which We Lack And Strive To Obtain Is The Instrument Of Slavery.

There Is A Period In Life When We Go Backwards As We Advance.

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

Social Contract

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

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

Love, Known To The Person By Whom It Is Inspired, Becomes More Bearable.

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

Not All The Subtilties Of Metaphysics Can Make Me Doubt A Moment Of The Immortality Of The Soul, And Of A Beneficent Providence. I Feel It, I Believe It, I Desire It, I Hope It, And Will Defend It To My Last Breath.

A Man Speaks Of What He Knows, A Woman Of What Pleases Her: The One Requires Knowledge, The Other Taste.

People Who Know Little Are Usually Great Talkers, While Men Who Know Much Say Little. It Is Plain That An Ignorant Person Thinks Everything He Does Know Important, And He Tells It To Everybody. But A Well-educated Man Is Not So Ready To Display His Learning; He Would Have Too Much To Say, And He Sees That There Is Much More To Be Said, So He Holds His Peace.

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.

It Is Too Difficult To Think Nobly When One Thinks Only Of Earning A Living.

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.

You Forget That The Fruits Belong To All And That The Land Belongs To No One.

The Strongest Is Never Strong Enough To Be Always The Master, Unless He Transforms Strength Into Right, And Obedience Into Duty.

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.

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.

Education Is Either From Nature, From Man Or From Things. The Developing Of Our Faculties And Organs Is The Education Of Nature; That Of Man Is The Application We Learn To Make Of This Very Developing; And That Of Things Is The Experience We Acquire In Regard To The Different Objects By Which We Are Affected. All That We Have Not At Our Birth, And That We Stand In Need Of At The Years Of Maturity, Is The Gift Of Education.

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.

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

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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.

That Man Is Truly Free Who Desires What He Is Able To Perform, And Does What He Desires.

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

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. It Is Strange That These Voices Often Contradict Each Other?

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason. [fr., L'enfance Est Le Sommeil De La Raison.]

Money Is The Seed Of Money, And The First Guinea Is Sometimes More Difficult To Acquire Than The Second Million.

Singing And Dancing Alone Will Not Advance One In The World. [fr., Qui Bien Chante Et Bien Danse Fait Un Metier Qui Peu Avance.]

The Happiest Is He Who Suffers Least; The Most Miserable Is He Who Enjoys Least.

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

Being Wealthy Isn't Just A Question Of Having Lots Of Money. It's A Question Of What We Want. Wealth Isn't An Absolute, It's Relative To Desire. Every Time We Seek Something That We Can't Afford, We Can Be Counted As Poor, How Much Money We May Actually Have.

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

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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.

The Want Of Occupation Is No Less The Plague Of Society Than Of Solitude.

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.

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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.

It Is Hard To Prevent Oneself From Believing What One So Keenly Desires.

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

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.

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.

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

Universal Silence Is Taken To Imply The Consent Of The People.

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.

Whence Do I Get My Rules Of Conduct? I Find Them In My Heart. Whatever I Feel To Be Good Is Good. Whatever I Feel To Be Evil Is Evil. Conscience Is The Best Of Casuists.

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