Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?Collection: Believe
Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.Collection: People
Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them.Collection: Would Be
I bold it impossible, that the great monarchies of Europe can subsist much longer; they all affect magnificence and splendor.Collection: Thinking
But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.Collection: People
Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Moving
Everything degenerates in the hands of man.Collection: Men
What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?Collection: Survivor
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.Collection: Eye
Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited.Collection: Rights
Two things, almost incompatible, are united in me in a manner which I am unable to understand: a very ardent temperament, lively and tumultuous passions, and, at the same time, slowly developed and confused ideas, which never present themselves until it is too late. One might say that my heart and my mind do not belong to the same person.Collection: Confused
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.Collection: Children
Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.Collection: Mean
The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin.Collection: Children
Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.Collection: Peace
Consolation indiscreetly pressed upon us, when we are suffering undue affliction, only serves to increase our pain, and to render our grief more poignant.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Coffee
Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.Collection: Giving
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.Collection: Mom
I don't know what is truth,but I can tell you how to find it!Collection: Unity
There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.Collection: Doers
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 practice?Collection: Practice
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.Collection: Love Is
As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.Collection: Long
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.Collection: Government
If Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus Christ died like a God.Collection: Christian
To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.Collection: Men
I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.Collection: Success
We do not know either unalloyed happiness or unmitigated misfortune. Everything in this world is a tangled yarn; we taste nothing in its purity; we do not remain two moments in the same state. Our affections as well as bodies, are in a perpetual flux.Collection: Change
Even knaves may be made good for something.Collection: Knavery
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.Collection: Children
The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.Collection: Example
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.Collection: Government
Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing.Collection: Creative
Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.Collection: Art
To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.Collection: May
The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.Collection: Gay
The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Death
The opportunity of making happy is more scarce than we imagine; the punishment of missing it is, never to meet with it again; and the use we make of it leaves us an eternal sentiment of satisfaction or repentance.Collection: Opportunity
To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.Collection: Men
War then, is a relation - not between man and man but between state and state and individuals are enemies only accidentally not as men, nor even as citizens but as soldiers not as members of their country, but as its defendersCollection: Country
Equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera, which can never be reduced to practice. But if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not to try at least to mitigate it? It is precisely because the force of things tends always to destroy equality that the force of the legislature must always tend to maintain it.Collection: Equality
We lose all that time which we might employ better.Collection: Time
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.Collection: Teacher