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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

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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War Then, Is A

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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

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More From Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

Love, Known To The Person By Whom It Is Inspired, Becomes More Bearable.

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.

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.

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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

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.

Even Knaves May Be Made Good For Something.

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Democracies Have

Remorse Sleeps In The Atmosphere Of Prosperity.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

Quit Thy Childhood, My Friend, And Wake Up!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

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".

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 All The Ills That Befall Us, We Are More Concerned By The Intention Than The Result. A Tile That Falls Off A Roof May Injure Us More Seriously, But It Will Not Wound Us So Deeply As A Stone Thrown Deliberately By A Malevolent Hand. The Blow May Miss, But The Intention Always Strikes Home.

Equality, Because Without It There Can Be No Liberty.

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

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.

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.

The Social Pact, Far From Destroying Natural Equality, Substitutes, On The Contrary, A Moral And Lawful Equality For Whatever Physical Inequality That Nature May Have Imposed On Mankind; So That However Unequal In Strength And Intelligence, Men Become Equal By Covenant And By Right.

The Political Body, Therefore, Is Also A Moral Being Which Has A Will; And This General Will, Which Tends Always To The Conservation And Well-being Of The Whole And Of Each Part Of It ... Is, For All Members Of The State ... The Rule Of What Is Just Or Unjust.

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

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

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

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

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

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

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.

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

The Tone Of Good Conversation Is Brilliant And Natural; It Is Neither Tedious Nor Frivolous; It Is Instructive Without Pedantry, Gay Without Tumultuousness, Polished Without Affectation, Gallant Without Insipidity, Waggish Without Equivocation.

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

Inspirational Christmas

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

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

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

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.

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.

It Is Hard To Prevent Oneself From Believing What One So Keenly Desires, And Who Can Doubt That The Interest We Have In Admitting Or Denying The Reality Of The Judgement To Come Determines The Faith Of Most Men In Accordance With Their Hopes And Fears.

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

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!

Supreme Happiness Consists In Self-content.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.]

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

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

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.

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

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.

He Who Pretends To Look Upon Death Without Fear, Lies

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

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

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

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

Taste And Judgment

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

A Feeble Body Weakens The Mind.

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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 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.

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

World Suffering

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

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

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

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

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

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.

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.

Plant And Your Spouse Plants With You; Weed And You Weed Alone.

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

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

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

I Undertake The Same Project As Montaigne, But With An Aim Contrary To His Own: For He Wrote His Essays Only For Others, And I Write My Reveries Only For Myself.

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.

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Sovereigns Always See With Pleasure A Taste For The Arts Of Amusement And Superfluity, Which Do Not Result In The Exportation Of Bullion, Increase Among Their Subjects. They Very Well Know That, Besides Nourishing That Littleness Of Mind Which Is Proper To Slavery, The Increase Of Artificial Wants Only Binds So Many More Chains Upon The People.

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

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

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.

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

We Lose All That Time Which We Might Employ Better.

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

The World Of Reality Has Its Limits; The World Of Imagination Is Boundless.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If There Is In This World A Well-attested Account, It Is That Of Vampires. Nothing Is Lacking: Official Reports, Affidavits Of Well-known People, Of Surgeons, Of Priests, Of Magistrates; The Judicial Proof Is Most Complete. And With All That, Who Is There Who Believes In Vampires?

At First We Will Only Skim The Surface Of The Earth Like Young Starlings, But Soon, Emboldened By Practice And Experience, We Will Spring Into The Air With The Impetuousness Of The Eagle, Diverting Ourselves By Watching The Childish Behavior Of The Little Men Or Awling Miserably Around On The Earth Below Us.

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

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.

Patience Patience Quotes Is Bitter, But Its Fruit Is Sweet.

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

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

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

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.

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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.

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

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

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!

The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

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

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

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.

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

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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

Temperance And Labor Are The Two Real Physicians Of Man.

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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.

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.

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.]

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

Whoever Blushes Confesses Guilt, True Innocence Never Feels Shame.

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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.'

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.

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

Do Not Judge, And You Will Never Be Mistaken.

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.

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

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

Money Is The Seed Of Money.

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

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

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