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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Our Passions Are The

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

Posterity Is Always Just.

The Money You Have Gives You Freedom; The Money You Pursue Enslaves You.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Finance Is A Slave's Word.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

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

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

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.

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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.

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

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

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

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

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

To Live Is Not To Breathe But To Act. It Is To Make Use Of Our Organs, Our Senses, Our Faculties, Of All The Parts Of Ourselves Which Give Us The Sentiment Of Our Existence. The Man Who Has Lived The Most Is Not He Who Has Counted The Most Years But He Who Has Most Felt Life.

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

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

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

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

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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.

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?

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

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.

He Thinks Like A Philosopher, But Governs Like A King.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

General Abstract Truth Is The Most Precious Of All Blessings; Without It, Man Is Blind; It Is The Eye Of Reason.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

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

I Perceive God Everywhere In His Works. I Sense Him In Me; I See Him All Around Me.

Abstract Truth Is The Eye Of Reason.

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

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

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.

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

Social Contract

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.]

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.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All That Time Is Lost Which Might Be Better Employed.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Truth Is An Homage That The Good Man Pays To His Own Dignity.

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

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

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.]

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

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?

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

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.

I Only See Clearly What I Remember.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

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

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

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

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!

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

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

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

Whoever Blushes Confesses Guilt, True Innocence Never Feels Shame.

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

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.

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

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

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".

Equality Is Deemed By Many A Mere Speculative Chimera, Which Can Never Be Reduced To Practice. But If The Abuse Is Inevitable, Does It Follow That We Ought Not To Try At Least To Mitigate It? It Is Precisely Because The Force Of Things Tends Always To Destroy Equality That The Force Of The Legislature Must Always Tend To Maintain It.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

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

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.

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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?

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

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

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

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

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?

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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

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

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

I Think We Cannot Too Strongly Attack Superstition, Which Is The Disturber Of Society; Nor Too Highly Respect Genuine Religion, Which Is The Support Of It.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

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.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

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.

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.

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

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

It Is Unnatural For A Majority To Rule, For A Majority Can Seldom Be Organized And United For Specific Action, And A Minority Can.

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

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

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.

Those That Are Most Slow In Making A Promise Are The Most Faithful In The Performance Of It.

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.

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