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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The Political Body, Therefore,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...

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.

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More From Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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.

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.

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

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 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.

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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

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

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. Is It Astonishing That Often These Two Languages Contradict Each Other, And Then To Which Must We Listen? Too Often Reason Deceives Us; We Have Only Too Much Acquired The Right Of Refusing To Listen To It; But Conscience Never Deceives Us; It Is The True Guide Of Man; It Is To Man What Instinct Is To The Body; Which Follows It, Obeys Nature, And Never Is Afraid Of Going Astray.

He Who Pretends To Look Upon Death Without Fear, Lies

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.

We Have To Have Powder For Our Wigs; That Is Why So Many Poor People Have No Bread.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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

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

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

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

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.

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For Ourselves.

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

What Wisdom Can You Find That Is Greater Than Kindness?

All That Time Is Lost Which Might Be Better Employed.

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

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

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

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

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

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

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!

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

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

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.

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

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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 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.

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

The Body Politic, As Well As The Human Body, Begins To Die As Soon As It Is Born, And Carries Itself The Causes Of Its Destruction.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Equality, Because Without It There Can Be No Liberty.

A Blue-stocking Is The Scourge Of Her Husband, Children, Friends, Servants, And Every One. [fr., Une Femme Bel-esprit Est Le Fleau De Son Mari, De Ses Enfants, De Ses Amis, De Ses Valets, Et Tout Le Monde.]

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

It Is Always A Poor Way Of Reading The Hearts Of Others To Try To Conceal Our Own. [fr., C'est Toujours Un Mauvais Moyen De Lire Dans Le Coeur Des Autres Que D'affecter De Cacher Le Sien.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

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.

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.

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

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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

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 General Will Is Always Right.

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.

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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

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

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Democracies Have

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

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

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.

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

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.

Money Is The Seed Of Money.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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.

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

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

But I Am Mistaken In Speaking Of A Christian Republic; The Terms Are Mutually Exclusive. Christianity Preaches Only Servitude And Dependence. Its Spirit Is So Favorable To Tyranny That It Always Profits By Such A Regime. True Christians Are Made To Be Slaves, And They Know It And Do Not Much Mind; This Short Life Counts For Too Little In Their Eyes.

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

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

Social Contract

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

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

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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

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

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

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

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

The Freedom Of Mankind Does Not Lie In The Fact That Can Do What We Want, But That We Do Not Have To Do That Which We Do Not Want.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Presence Of Mind

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.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

It Has Always Pleased Me To Read While Eating If I Have No Companion; It Gives Me The Society I Lack. I Devour Alternately A Page And A Mouthful; It Is As Though My Book Were Dining With Me.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

A Person Who Can Break Wind Is Not Dead.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

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.

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.

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 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

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

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

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

[when Anything Happens, We Interpret It As Good Or Bad, But...] We Do Not Know What Is Really Good Or Bad Fortune. [only The Future Can Decide. For Example, What Appears To Be Bad Today May In Fact Lead Us To A Greater Good Tomorrow And By The Very Act Of Thinking And Planning In That Positive Way, We Can Help Make That Good Future Come True.]

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.

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

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.

Conscience Is The Voice Of The Soul, The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body. It Is Strange That These Voices Often Contradict Each Other?

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.

To Renounce Liberty Is To Renounce Being A Man, To Surrender The Rights Of Humanity And Even Its Duties. For He Who Renounces Everything No Indemnity Is Possible. Such A Renunciation Is Incompatible With Man's Nature; To Remove All Liberty From His Will Is To Remove All Morality From His Acts.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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