Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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.
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.
Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
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.
Childhood is the sleep of reason.
Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.
I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.
We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.
The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.
We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened.Collection: Your Side
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.Collection: Freedom
People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.Collection: Evil
Freedom is the power to choose our own chainsCollection: Chains
The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.Collection: Lying
Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.Collection: People
The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.Collection: Money
By doing good we become good.Collection: Evil
Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?Collection: Heart
The falsification of history has done more to impede human development than any one thing known to mankind.Collection: Education
Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.Collection: People
There is a period in life when we go backwards as we advance.Collection: Periods
Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.Collection: Inspirational
It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Educational
All kinds of frankness and honesty are terrible crimes in the eyes of society.Collection: Honesty
Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.Collection: Liberty
To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.Collection: World
One can buy anything with money except morality.Collection: Shopping
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.Collection: Law
If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.Collection: God
In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a gaurantee of impunity.Collection: Punishment
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.Collection: Life
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?Collection: People
I have suffered too much in this world not to hope for another.Collection: World Suffering
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of manCollection: Men
The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence.Collection: Order
I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.Collection: Faith
When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.Collection: Men
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.Collection: People
Money is the seed of money.Collection: Inspirational
The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.Collection: Women