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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Leave Those Vain Moralists,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...

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.

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

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

A Feeble Body Weakens The Mind.

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.

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

An Honest Man Nearly Always Thinks Justly.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Anticipation And Hope Are Born Twins.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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

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

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.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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

Posterity Is Always Just.

I Have Always Said And Felt That True Enjoyment Can Not Be Described.

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

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

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

How Many Famous And High-spirited Heroes Have Lived A Day Too Long?

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.

Abstaining So As Really To Enjoy, Is The Epicurism, The Very Perfection, Of Reason.

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

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.]

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.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

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

The Members Of A Body-politic Call It "the State" When It Is Passive, "the Sovereign" When It Is Active, And A "power" When They Compare It With Others Of Its Kind. Collectively They Use The Title "people," And They Refer To One Another Individually As "citizens" When Speaking Of Their Participation In The Authority Of The Sovereign, And As "subjects" When Speaking Of Their Subordination To The Laws Of The State.

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

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

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.

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.

He Who Pretends To Look Upon Death Without Fear, Lies

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Believed That Physiognomy Is Only A Simple Development Of The Features Already Marked Out By Nature. It Is My Opinion, However, That In Addition To This Development, The Features Come Insensibly To Be Formed And Assume Their Shape From The Frequent And Habitual Expression Of Certain Affections Of The Soul. These Affections Are Marked On The Countenance; Nothing Is More Certain Than This; And When They Turn Into Habits, They Must Leave On It Durable Impressions.

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.

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

Many Men, Seemingly Impelled By Fortune, Hasten Forward To Meet Misfortune Half Way.

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

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

The More Humanity Owes Him, The More Society Denies Him. Every Door Is Shut Against Him, Even When He Has A Right To Its Being Opened: And If He Ever Obtains Justice, It Is With Much Greater Difficulty Than Others Obtain Favors.

The Falsification Of History Has Done More To Impede Human Development Than Any One Thing Known To Mankind.

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

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.

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.

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.]

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

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

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

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

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.

If There Is In This World A Well-attested Account, It Is That Of Vampires. Nothing Is Lacking: Official Reports, Affidavits Of Well-known People, Of Surgeons, Of Priests, Of Magistrates; The Judicial Proof Is Most Complete. And With All That, Who Is There Who Believes In Vampires?

Your First Duty Is To Be Humane. Love Childhood. Look With Friendly Eyes On Its Games, Its Pleasures, Its Amiable Dispositions. Which Of You Does Not Sometimes Look Back Regretfully On The Age When Laughter Was Ever On The Lips And The Heart Free Of Care? Why Steal From The Little Innocents The Enjoyment Of A Time That Passes All Too Quickly?

There Is No Subjection So Perfect As That Which Keeps The Appearance Of Freedom.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Two Things, Almost Incompatible, Are United In Me In A Manner Which I Am Unable To Understand: A Very Ardent Temperament, Lively And Tumultuous Passions, And, At The Same Time, Slowly Developed And Confused Ideas, Which Never Present Themselves Until It Is Too Late. One Might Say That My Heart And My Mind Do Not Belong To The Same Person.

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

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.

Every Free Action Has Two Causes That Come Together To Produce It. One Is Moral, The Will That Determines The Act; The Other Is Physical, The Power That Executes The Will To Act.

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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

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.

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Quit Thy Childhood, My Friend, And Wake Up!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.]

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 Artists Wants To Be Applauded

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

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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

Frequent Punishments Are Always A Sign Of Weakness Or Laziness On The Part Of A Government.

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.

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

Democracies Have

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.

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.

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!

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

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

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.

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

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.

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

The Visible Order Of The Universe Proclaims A Supreme Intelligence.

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".

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

Abstract Truth Is The Eye Of Reason.

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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.

Usurpers Always Bring About Or Select Troublous Times To Get Passed, Under Cover Of The Public Terror, Destructive Laws, Which The People Would Never Adopt In Cold Blood. The Moment Chosen Is One Of The Surest Means Of Distinguishing The Work Of The Legislator From That Of The Tyrant.

That Which Renders Life Burdensome To Us Generally Arises From The Abuse Of It.

I Am Not Made Like Any Of Those I Have Seen. I Venture To Believe That I Am Not Made Like Any Of Those Who Are In Existence. If I Am Not Better, At Least I Am Different.

Being Different

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

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.

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

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

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

I Only See Clearly What I Remember.

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

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

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 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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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!

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.

Finance Is A Slave's Word.

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

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.

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

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?

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

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.]

Watch A Cat When It Enters A Room For The First Time. It Searches And Smells About, It Is Not Quiet For A Moment, It Trusts Nothing Until It Has Examined And Made Acquaintance With Everything.

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Socrates Dies With Honor, Surrounded By His Disciples Listening To The Most Tender Words -the Easiest Death That One Could Wish To Die. Jesus Dies In Pain, Dishonor, Mockery, The Object Of Universal Cursing - The Most Horrible Death That One Could Fear. At The Receipt Of The Cup Of Poison, Socrates Blesses Him Who Could Not Give It To Him Without Tears; Jesus, While Suffering The Sharpest Pains, Prays For His Most Bitter Enemies. If Socrates Lived And Died Like A Philosopher, Jesus Lived And Died Like A God.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The General Will Is Always Right.

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

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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

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

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

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.

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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.

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.

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

Taste And Judgment

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Solomon Ibn Gabirol

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