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I Was Not Much Afraid Of Punishment, I Was Only Afraid Of Disgrace.but That I Feared More Than Death, More Than Crime, More Than Anything In The World. I Should Have Rejoiced If The Earth Had Swallowed Me Up And Stifled Me In The Abyss. But My Invincible Sense Of Shame Prevailed Over Everything . It Was My Shame That Made Me Impudent, And The More Wickedly I Behaved The Bolder My Fear Of Confession Made Me. I Saw Nothing But The Horror Of Being Found Out, Of Being Publicly Proclaimed, To My Face, As A Thief, As A Liar, And Slanderer.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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I Was Not Much

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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I Was Not Much Afraid Of Punishment, I Was Only Afraid Of Disgrace.but That I Feared More Than Death, More Than Crime, More Than Anything In The World. I Should Have Rejoiced If The Earth Had Swallowed Me Up And Stifled Me In The Abyss. But My Invincible Sense Of Shame Prevailed Over Everything . It Was My Shame That Made Me Impudent, And The More Wickedly I Behaved The Bolder My Fear Of Confession Made Me. I Saw Nothing But The Horror Of Being Found Out, Of Being Publicly Proclaimed, To My Face, As A Thief, As A Liar, And Slanderer.

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Remorse Goes To Sleep During A Prosperous Period And Wakes Up In Adversity. [fr., Le Remords S'endort Durant Un Destin Prospere Et S'aigrit Dans L'adversite.]

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.

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.

Slaves Lose Everything In Their Chains, Even The Desire Of Escaping From Them.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.]

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

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

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

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

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

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

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.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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.

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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

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

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

Insults Are The Arguments Employed By Those Who Are In The Wrong.

Insult To Injury

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

Anticipation And Hope Are Born Twins.

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

Once You Teach People To Say What They Do Not Understand, It Is Easy Enough To Get Them To Say Anything You Like. V One Could Wish No Easier Death Than That Of Socrates, Calmly Discussing Philosophy With His Friends; One Could Fear Nothing Worse Than That Of Jesus, Dying In Torment, Among The Insults, The Mockery, The Curses Of The Whole Nation. In The Midst Of These Terrible Sufferings, Jesus Prays For His Cruel Murderers. Yes, If The Life And Death Of Socrates Are Those Of A Philosopher, The Life And Death Of Christ Are Those Of A God.

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

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

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

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

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

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

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

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

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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

What Wisdom Can You Find That Is Greater Than Kindness?

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

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

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.

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

At Genoa, The Word Liberty May Be Read Over The Front Of The Prisons And On The Chains Of The Galley-slaves. This Application Of The Device Is Good And Just. It Is Indeed Only Malefactors Of All Estates Who Prevent The Citizen From Being Free. In The Country In Which All Such Men Were In The Galleys, The Most Perfect Liberty Would Be Enjoyed.

The French Painter Rousseau Was Once Asked Why He Put A Naked Woman On A Red Sofa In The Middle Of His Jungle Pictures. He Answered, 'i Needed A Bit Of Red There.'

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

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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.

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!

...in Respect Of Riches, No Citizen Shall Ever Be Wealthy Enough To Buy Another, And None Poor Enough To Be Forced To Sell Himself.

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

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

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.

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

There Are Two Things To Be Considered With Regard To Any Scheme. In The First Place, Is It Good In Itself? In The Second, Can It Be Easily Put Into Practice?

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

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

The Mind Grows Narrow In Proportion As The Soul Grows Corrupt.

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

Democracies Have

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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.

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

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.

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

Posterity Is Always Just.

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

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

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

Whoever Refuses To Obey The General Will Will Be Forced To Do So By The Entire Body; This Means Merely That He Will Be Forced To Be Free.

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

Nature Never Deceives Us; It Is We Who Deceive Ourselves.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

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

Social Contract

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

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.

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.

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

Let It Not, Therefore, Be Said That The Sovereign Is Not Subject To The Laws Of His State; Since The Contrary Is A True Proposition Of The Right Of Nations, Which Flattery Has Sometimes Attacked But Good Princes Have Always Defended As The Tutelary Divinity Of Their Dominions. How Much More Legitimate Is It To Say With The Wise Plato, That The Perfect Felicity Of A Kingdom Consists In The Obedience Of Subjects To Their Prince, And Of The Prince To The Laws, And In The Laws Being Just And Constantly Directed To The Public Good!

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

Finance Is A Slave's Word.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

[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.]

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

Ah, That Is A Perfume In Which I Delight; When They Roast Coffee Near My House, I Hasten To Open The Door To Take In All The Aroma.

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

I Remembered The Way Out Suggested By A Great Princess When Told That The Peasants Had No Bread: "well, Let Them Eat Cake".

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

The Most Absolute Authority Is That Which Penetrates Into A Man's Innermost Being And Concerns Itself No Less With His Will Than With His Actions.

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, By Chance, Someone Among Those Men Of Extraordinary Talent Is Found Who Has Firmness Of Soul And Who Refuses To Yield To The Genius Of His Age And To Debase Himself With Childish Works, Woe Unto Him! He Will Die In Poverty And Oblivion.

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

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.

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 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.

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?

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 Only Moral Lesson Which Is Suited For A Child--the Most Important Lesson For Every Time Of Life--is This: 'never Hurt Anybody.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Do You Not Know...that A Child Badly Taught Is Farther From Being Wise Than One Not Taught At All?

The Freedom Of Mankind Does Not Lie In The Fact That Can Do What We Want, But That We Do Not Have To Do That Which We Do Not Want.

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

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.

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.

It Is Always A Poor Way Of Reading The Hearts Of Others To Try To Conceal Our Own. [fr., C'est Toujours Un Mauvais Moyen De Lire Dans Le Coeur Des Autres Que D'affecter De Cacher Le Sien.]

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.

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

Days Of Absence, Sad And Dreary, Clothed In Sorrow's Dark Array, - Days Of Absence, I Am Weary; She I Love Is Far Away.

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.

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.

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

The Body Politic, As Well As The Human Body, Begins To Die As Soon As It Is Born, And Carries Itself The Causes Of Its Destruction.

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

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

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

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.

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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

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.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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.

Interest Is The Spur Of The People, But Glory That Of Great Souls.

Everything Is Good As It Comes From The Hands Of The Maker Of The World, But Degenerates Once It Gets Into The Hands Of Man

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.

To Try To Conceal Our Own Heart Is A Bad Means To Read That Of Others.

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.

An Intelligent Being, Is The Active Principle Of All Things. One Must Have Renounced All Common Sense To Doubt It, And It Is A Waste Of Time To Try To Prove Such Self Evident Truth.

Definitions Would Be Good Things If We Did Not Use Words To Make Them.

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

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.

Take From The Philosopher The Pleasure Of Being Heard And His Desire For Knowledge Ceases.

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.]

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

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

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every Man Having Been Born Free And Master Of Himself, No One Else May Under Any Pretext Whatever Subject Him Without His Consent. To Assert That The Son Of A Slave Is Born A Slave Is To Assert That He Is Not Born A Man.

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

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

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.

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.

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

This Dog, Which, Although No Beauty, Was Of An Uncommon Breed, I Had Made My Friend And Companion; And It Certainly Deserved The Name Better Than The Majority Of Those Who Had Assumed It.

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.

Whoever Blushes Confesses Guilt, True Innocence Never Feels Shame.

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.

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

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

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.

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

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.

Men Will Argue More Philosophically About The Human Heart; But Women Will Read The Heart Of Man Better Than They.

In Any Case, Frequent Punishments Are A Sign Of Weakness Or Slackness In The Government. There Is No Man So Bad That He Cannot Be Made Good For Something. No Man Should Be Put To Death, Even As An Example, If He Can Be Left To Live Without Danger To Society.

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

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

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

Reading, Solitude, Idleness, A Soft And Sedentary Life, Intercourse With Women And Young People, These Are Perilous Paths For A Young Man, And These Lead Him Constantly Into Danger.

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.

There Is A Period Of Life When We Go Back As We Advance. [fr., Il Est Un Terme De La Vie Au-dela Duquel En Retrograde En Avancant.]

The Animals You Eat Are Not Those Who Devour Others; You Do Not Eat The Carnivorous Beasts, You Take Them As Your Pattern. You Only Hunger For The Sweet And Gentle Creatures Which Harm No One, Which Follow You, Serve You, And Are Devoured By You As The Reward Of Their Service.

We Are Born, So To Speak, Twice Over; Born Into Existence, And Born Into Life; Born A Human Being, And Born A Man.

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.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

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

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

Teach By Doing Whenever You Can, And Only Fall Back Upon Words When Doing It Is Out Of The Question.

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.

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.

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

The Person Who Has Lived The Most Is Not The One With The Most Years But The One With The Richest Experiences.

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.

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Charles Perrault

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