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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Ruthless Man: You Begin

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.

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

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.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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

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

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

An Honest Man Nearly Always Thinks Justly.

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

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

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

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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.

Posterity Is Always Just.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

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

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.

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

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

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

To Be Sane In A World Of Madman Is In Itself Madness.

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.]

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

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

Insult To Injury

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

Presence Of Mind

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

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

Taste And Judgment

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

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

The 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.

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.

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

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

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

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.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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.

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.

Anticipation And Hope Are Born Twins.

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

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

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

Men And Women Are Made For Each Other, But Their Mutual Dependence Differs In Degrees; Man Is Dependent On Woman Through His Desires; Woman Is Dependent On Man Through Her Desires And Also Through Her Needs; He Could Do Without Her Better Than She Can Do Without Him. She Cannot Fulfill Her Purpose In Life Without His Aid, Without His Goodwill, Without His Respect.....nature Herself Has Decreed That Woman, Both For Herself And Her Children, Should Be At The Mercy Of Man S Judgment.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

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

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

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

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.

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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.'

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If There Were A People Consisting Of Gods, They Would Be Governed Democratically. So Perfect A Government Is Not Suitable To Men.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Is Well Known That A Loose And Easy Dress Contributes Much To Give To Both Sexes Those Fine Proportions Of Body That Are Observable In The Grecian Statues, And Which Serve As Models To Our Present Artists.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

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

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

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!

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.

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

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

A Born King Is A Very Rare Being.

Social Contract

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.

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.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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".

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

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 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!

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Money Is The Seed Of Money.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Social Contract

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