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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.

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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You Are Worried About

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.

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More From Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Men Speak From Knowledge, Women From Imagination.

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

But Remain The Teacher Of The Young Teachers. Advise And Direct Us, And We Will Be Ready To Learn. I Will Have Need Of You As Long As I Live.

Rather Suffer An Injustice Than Commit One.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Only See Clearly What I Remember.

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.

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

The General Will Is Always Right.

Everything Degenerates In The Hands Of Man.

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

Democracies Have

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

Social Man Lives Constantly Outside Himself.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Base Souls Have No Faith In Great Individuals.

Cities Are The Abyss Of The Human Species.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Prefer Liberty With Danger Than Peace With Slavery.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Presence Of Mind

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.

To Live Is Not Breathing It Is Action.

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

The Greatest Braggarts Are Usually The Biggest Cowards.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Man Is Born Free And Everywhere He Is In Chains.

Money Is The Seed Of Money.

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

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

Girls Must Be Thwarted Early In Life.

British History

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

One Can Buy Anything With Money Except Morality.

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

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

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

The World Is The Book Of Women. Whatever Knowledge They May Possess Is More Commonly Acquired By Observation Than By Reading.

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

No Man Has Any Natural Authority Over His Fellow Men.

Innocence Is Ashamed Of Nothing.

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

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.

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.

Our Greatest Misfortunes Come To Us From Ourselves.

If I Am Part Of A Group Of 100 People, Do 99 People Have The Right To Sentence Me To Death, Just Because They Are Majority?

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

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

Religious Persecutors Are Not Believers, They Are Rascals.

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

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.

Remorse Sleeps During Prosperity But Awakes Bitter Consciousness During Adversity.

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

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.]

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Bigger A State Becomes The More Liberty Diminishes.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Passions Are The Voice Of The Body.

[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.]

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

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

Government Originated In The Attempt To Find A Form Of Association That Defends And Protects The Person And Property Of Each With The Common Force Of All.

No One Is Happy Unless He Respects Himself.

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.

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.

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

Taste And Judgment

Sacrifice Life To Truth.

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.

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

Smell Is The Sense Of Memory And Desire.

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.

Living Is Not Breathing But Doing.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Our Greatest Evil Flows From Ourselves.

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

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

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

The Apparent Ease With Which Children Learn Is Their Ruin.

Every Artists Wants To Be Applauded

An Honest Man Nearly Always Thinks Justly.

Childhood Is The Sleep Of Reason.

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

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

World Suffering

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

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?

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

God Made Me And Broke The Mold.

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?

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.

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?

Our Greatest Evils Flow From Ourselves.

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

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

The Truth Brings No Man A Fortune.

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

The Man Who Meditates Is A Depraved Animal.

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

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.

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.

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!

Liberty May Be Gained, But Can Never Be Recovered.

The Visible Order Of The Universe Proclaims A Supreme Intelligence.

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.

Posterity Is Always Just.

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

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.

Luxury Either Comes Of Riches Or Makes Them Necessary; It Corrupts At Once Rich And Poor, The Rich By Possession And The Poor By Covetousness.

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.

He Who Pretends To Look Upon Death Without Fear, Lies

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

All That Time Is Lost Which Might Be Better Employed.

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

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.

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.

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

Every Blue-stocking Will Remain A Spinster As Long As There Are Sensible Men On The Earth. [fr., Toute Fille Lettree Restera Fille Toute Sa Vie, Quand Il N'y Aura Que Des Hommes Senses Sur La Terre.]

My Liveliest Delight Was In Having Conquered Myself.

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