Background Image

...

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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

To Discover The Rules

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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.

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

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

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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

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

Taste And Judgment

I Do Not Know Is A Phrase Which Becomes Us.

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

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

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

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

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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.

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?

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.

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content.

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

World Suffering

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

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

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

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

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.'

By Doing Good We Become Good.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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

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

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.

Ought To Have A Universal Compulsory Force To Move And Arrange Each Part In The Manner Best Suited To The Whole. Just As Nature Gives Each Man An Absolute Power Over All His Members, The Social Compact Gives The Body Politic An Absolute Power Over All Its Members." "we Grant That Each Person Alienates, By The Social Compact, Only That Portion Of His Power, His Goods, And Liberty Whose Use Is Of Consequence To The Community; But We Must Also Grant That Only The Sovereign Is The Judge Of What Is Of Consequence.

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

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

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

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.

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.

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

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

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

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.]

He Who Blushes Is Already Guilty.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

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 Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Freedom Is The Power To Choose Our Own Chains

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

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

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

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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.

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

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.

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

He Who Pretends To Look Upon Death Without Fear, Lies

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.

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

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.

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

Reason Deceives Us; Conscience, Never.

Physical Evils Destroy Themselves, Or They Destroy Us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We Can Never Put Ourselves In The Shoes Of Children; We Cannot Fathom Their Thoughts, We Lend Them Ours; And Always Following Ourown Reasoning, We Stuff Their Heads With Extravagance And Error.

[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.]

All That Time Is Lost Which Might Be Better Employed.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Your First Duty Is To Be Humane. Love Childhood. Look With Friendly Eyes On Its Games, Its Pleasures, Its Amiable Dispositions. Which Of You Does Not Sometimes Look Back Regretfully On The Age When Laughter Was Ever On The Lips And The Heart Free Of Care? Why Steal From The Little Innocents The Enjoyment Of A Time That Passes All Too Quickly?

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

We Cannot Work For Others Without Working For 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.

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

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

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.]

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

Democracies Have

The French, For Example, Are A Contemptible Nation.

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

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

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.

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

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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.

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.

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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.

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.

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Visible Order Of The Universe Proclaims A Supreme Intelligence.

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

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

The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

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.

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

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

Trust Your Heart Rather Than Your Head.

Trust Your Heart

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Abstain That We May Enjoy Is The Epicurianism Of Reason.

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.

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

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

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

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.

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

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 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.

Trending Author

Michelle Rodriguez

Timothy Findley

Ibrahim Babangida

John Mason Brown

Category