Jean-Jacques Rousseau
[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.]Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
I loved too sincerely, too completely, I venture to say, to be able to be happy easily.Collection: Venture
Since men cannot create new forces, but merely combine and control those which already exist, the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert.Collection: Strong
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.Collection: Believe
If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable to men.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Men
As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.Collection: Men
Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people would never adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of the surest means of distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.Collection: Mean
It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Philosophy
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.Collection: Happiness
To live is not breathing it is action.Collection: Life
The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.Collection: Men
There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.Collection: Taken
The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.Collection: Strength
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.Collection: Sex
Generally we obtain very surely and very speedily what we are not too anxious to obtain.Collection: Anxiety
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.Collection: Journey
I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: "Well, let them eat cake".Collection: Princess
He who blushes is already guilty.Collection: Guilty
The truths of the Scriptures are so marked and inimitable, that the inventor would be more of a miraculous character than the hero.Collection: Hero
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.Collection: Educational
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.Collection: Night
Physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.Collection: Evil
If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.Collection: Men
Abstract truth is the eye of reason.Collection: Truth
The general will is always right.Collection: Democracy
Inopportune consolations increase a deep sorrow.Collection: Sorrow
Chemistry... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation; she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes.Collection: Science
To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Faith
Our greatest evil flows from ourselves.Collection: Evil
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.Collection: Christian
Remorse sleeps in the atmosphere of prosperity.Collection: Sleep
et tout le monde.]"Collection: De Ses Amis
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".Collection: Country
One must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time.Collection: Time
A born king is a very rare being.Collection: Kings
Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.Collection: Inspired
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?Collection: Laughter
Nature wants children to be children before men... Childhood has its own seeing, thinking and feeling.Collection: Nature
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?Collection: Book
Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.Collection: Christian
A paralyzed man who wants to walk OR an agile man who does not want to walk will both remain neutral in nature.Collection: Motivational