“Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.”

The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.

Nothing on this earth is worth buying at the price of human blood.

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.

The social pact, far from destroying natural equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral and lawful equality for whatever physical inequality that nature may have imposed on mankind; so that however unequal in strength and intelligence, men become equal by covenant and by right.

A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty.

Girls should learn that so much finery is only put on to hide defects, and that the triumph of beauty is to shine by itself.

To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.

We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.

Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

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.

It is a great evil for a Chief of a nation to be born the enemy of the freedom whose defender he should be.

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.

Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Understand that the only way to get happiness is by giving it away to others.

The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.

You have everything you need for complete peace and total happiness right now.

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on.

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions.

Beauty might bring happiness, but happiness always brings beauty.

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.