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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Teach Him To Live

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.

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

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

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.

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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.

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

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

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.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

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.

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.

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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

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

The Visible Order Of The Universe Proclaims A Supreme Intelligence.

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.

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

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.

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

Taste And Judgment

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

A Feeble Body Weakens The Mind.

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!

Posterity Is Always Just.

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

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.

If All Were Perfect Christians, Individuals Would Do Their Duty; The People Would Be Obedient To The Laws, The Magistrates Incorrupt, And There Would Be Neither Vanity Nor Luxury In Such A State.

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

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

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

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

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

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.

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.

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

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

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

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".

In Genoa, The Word, Libertas Can Be Read On The Front Of Prisons And On The Fetters Of Galley-slaves. The Application Of This Motto Is Fine And Just.

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.]

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

World Suffering

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.

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.

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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

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

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

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

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ruthless Man: You Begin By Slaying The Animal And Then You Devour It, As If To Slay It Twice. It Is Not Enough. You Turn Against The Dead Flesh, It Revolts You, It Must Be Transformed By Fire, Boiled And Roasted, Seasoned And Disguised With Drugs; You Must Have Butchers, Cooks, Turnspits, Men Who Will Rid The Murder Of Its Horrors, Who Will Dress The Dead Bodies So That The Taste Decieved By These Disguises Will Not Reject What Is Strange To It, And Will Feast On Corpses, The Very Sight Of Which Would Sicken You.

I Have 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.

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

We Are Born Weak, We Need Strength; Helpless, We Need Aid; Foolish, We Need Reason. All That We Lack At Birth, All That We Need When We Come To Man's Estate, Is The Gift Of Education.

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.

A Born King Is A Very Rare Being.

Social Contract

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

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

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.

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

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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.

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

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

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

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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

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

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

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

Accent Is The Soul Of Language; It Gives To It Both Feeling And Truth.

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.]

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.

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.

Whoever Blushes Confesses Guilt, True Innocence Never Feels Shame.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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.

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

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.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

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

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

The General Will Is Always Right.

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.

Our Will Is Always For Our Own Good, But We Do Not Always See What That Is; The People Is Never Corrupted, But It Is Often Deceived, And On Such Occasions Only Does It Seem To Will What Is Bad.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

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.

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

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

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.

What Wisdom Can You Find That Is Greater Than Kindness?

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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

We Cannot Teach Children The Danger Of Telling Lies To Men Without Realising, On The Man's Part, The Danger Of Telling Lies To Children. A Single Untruth On The Part Of The Master Will Destroy The Results Of His Education.

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

Insult To Injury

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

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

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

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

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

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

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.

I Believed That I Was Approaching The End Of My Days Without Having Tasted To The Full Any Of The Pleasures For Which My Heart Thirsted...without Having Ever Tasted That Passion Which, Through Lack Of An Object, Was Always Suppressed. ...the Impossibility Of Attaining The Real Persons Precipitated Me Into The Land Of Chimeras; And Seeing Nothing That Existed Worthy Of My Exalted Feelings, I Fostered Them In An Ideal World Which My Creative Imagination Soon Peopled With Beings After My Own Heart.

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

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

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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.

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

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.

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

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

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

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

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.

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.

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

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

Social Contract

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

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

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

Inspirational Christmas

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

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

I Only See Clearly What I Remember.

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