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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The First Step Towards

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.

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The English People Believes Itself To Be Free; It Is Gravely Mistaken; It Is Free Only During Election Of Members Of Parliament; As Soon As The Members Are Elected, The People Is Enslaved; It Is Nothing. In The Brief Moment Of Its Freedom, The English People Makes Such A Use Of That Freedom That It Deserves To Lose It.

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

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

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.

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

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Fame Is But The Breath Of People, And That Often Unwholesome.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

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

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.

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

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

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

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.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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

Democracies Have

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

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

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

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!

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.

He Who Has The Base Necessities Of Life Should Pay Nothing; Taxation On Him Who Has A Surplus May, If Need Be; Extend To Everything Beyond Necessities.

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

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.

Do Not Base Your Life On The Judgments Of Others; First, Because They Are As Likely To Be Mistaken As You Are, And Further, Because You Cannot Know That They Are Telling You Their True Thoughts.

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".

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

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

World Suffering

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

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.

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.

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

Abstract Truth Is The Eye Of Reason.

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.

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

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 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.

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

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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

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

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.

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

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

Inopportune Consolations Increase A Deep Sorrow.

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

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

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.

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

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

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

Social Contract

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.

O Love, If I Regret The Age When One Savors You, It Is Not For The Hour Of Pleasure, But For The One That Follows It.

The 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.

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

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

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.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

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.

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

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

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

Men, In General, Are Not This Or That, They Are What They Are Made To Be.

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.

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.

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.

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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.

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

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content.

Equality, Because Without It There Can Be No Liberty.

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

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

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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.

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.

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

Anticipation And Hope Are Born Twins.

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.

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

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

From The First Moment Of Life, Men Ought To Begin Learning To Deserve To Live; And, As At The Instant Of Birth We Partake Of The Rights Of Citizenship, That Instant Ought To Be The Beginning Of The Exercise Of Our Duty.

There Is 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 General Will Is Always Right.

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

To Write A Good Love Letter, You Ought To Begin Without Knowing What You Mean To Say, And To Finish Without Knowing What You Have Written.

I 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

An Honest Man Nearly Always Thinks Justly.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Strength Of The People Is Effective Only If It Is Concentrated; It Evaporates And Is Lost When It Is Dispersed, Just As Gunpowder Scattered On The Ground Ignites Only Grain By Grain.

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

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.

In Truth, Laws Are Always Useful To Those With Possessions And Harmful To Those Who Have Nothing; From Which It Follows That The Social State Is Advantageous To Men Only When All Possess Something And None Has Too Much.

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.

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

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.

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.

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

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

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

I Only See Clearly What I Remember.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A Born King Is A Very Rare Being.

Social Contract

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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