Jean Jacques Rousseau Quotes
I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.
Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.
I may be no better, but at least I am different.
A feeble body weakens the mind.
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
The issue is not to teach a child the sciences, but to give him the taste for loving them.
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the author of things, everything degenerates in the hands of man.
When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.
Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless.
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.
It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.
The very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affair, however little influence my voice may have in them.
Why should we build our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.
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.
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?
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil... Blushes are the sign of guilt; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
Sophie is not beautiful, but in her company men forget beautiful women, and beautiful women are dissatisfied with themselves.
There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, "Is it good in itself?" In the second, "Can it be easily put into practise?
In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed.
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.
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 have studied mankind and know my heart; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mold in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.
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.
Men, be kind to your fellow-men; this is your first duty, kind to every age and station, kind to all that is not foreign to humanity. What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I.
Habit accustoms us to everything. What we see too much, we no longer imagine; and it is only imagination which makes us feel the ills of others. It is thus by dint of seeing death and suffering that priests and doctors become pitiless.
