Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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.Collection: Political
Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.Collection: Giving
The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.Collection: Rights
An honest man nearly always thinks justly.Collection: Honesty
He who has the base necessities of life should pay nothing; taxation on him who has a surplus may, if need be; extend to everything beyond necessities.Collection: Needs
In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.Collection: Men
It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.Collection: Courage
I do not know is a phrase which becomes us.Collection: Knowledge
I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?Collection: Infinite
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.Collection: Book
With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.Collection: Wise
Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.Collection: Liberty
To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.Collection: Love
Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.Collection: Men
Sacrifice life to truth.Collection: Truth
That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.Collection: Abuse
Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of a government.Collection: War
Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.Collection: Art
All that time is lost which might be better employed.Collection: Time
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?Collection: Passion
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.Collection: Spring
The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.Collection: Freedom
Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.Collection: Heart
Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.Collection: Taste And Judgment
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.Collection: Fire
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.Collection: Beautiful
The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived.Collection: People
Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken.Collection: Justice
I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.Collection: Men
In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.Collection: Democracies Have
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.Collection: Knowledge
Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excessCollection: Men
There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.Collection: Perfect
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.Collection: Greatness
Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.Collection: Passion
The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.Collection: Liberty
All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.Collection: Teaching
Finance is a slave's word.Collection: Finance
My liveliest delight was in having conquered myself.Collection: Inspirational
Innocence is ashamed of nothing.Collection: Innocence
Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing it is out of the question.Collection: Fall
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.Collection: Rocks
Social man lives constantly outside himself.Collection: Men
Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.Collection: Misfortunes
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.Collection: Fall
Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.Collection: Law
Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.Collection: Love
The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel has its influence on my heart.Collection: Heart