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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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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
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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Freedom Mistake People Slave
What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Goodness Oneself Survive
I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Danger Liberty Myself Peace Slave
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
Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Happiness Nature People
We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Children Danger Lying Man Teaching
MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born Free Greatness Himself Man Slave Thinking
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?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Believe Fantasy People Reality World
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Goodness Hands Man
Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Happiness Heart Opinion Philosophy
My birth was my first misfortune.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born Misfortune Myself
However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Act Greatness Learning Man Talent Writing
The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Alone Born Difference Happiness Limitation Oneself Pain Reality World
Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Beginning Body Death Leaving Mortal
To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties – of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Act Breathe Existence Feeling Live Ourselves Philosophy Yourself