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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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In any real democracy, magistracy isn’t a benefit—it’s a burdensome responsibility that can’t fairly be imposed on one individual rather than another.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Democracy Reality Responsibility
Being wealthy isn’t just a question of having lots of money. It’s a question of what we want. Wealth isn’t an absolute, it’s relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can’t afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Desire Money Philosophy Rich Seek Time
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Danger Liberty Myself Peace Slave
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Difficult Live Oneself Survive Thinking
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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Feeling Identify Myself Nature
The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Believe Enough Man People Pieces Simplicity
One does not drink. One gives a kiss to his glass, and the wine returns a caress to you.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Drink Kiss Oneself Wine Yourself
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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Force Freedom Himself Human Man Myself Power Thinking Willing
I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Believe Different Existence Myself See
What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Body Freedom Government Law Politics
From this it follows that, the larger the State, the less the liberty.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Freedom Liberty Nation
My birth was my first misfortune.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born Misfortune Myself
There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Deep Desire Enough Need Peace Prison
Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Dignity Goodness Man Pay Truth
Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Civilization Discover Evil Hope Race
It is pity in which the state of nature takes the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the added advantage that no one there is tempted to disobey its gentle voice.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Justice Law Moral Nature Place Virtue Voice