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 ROUSSEAUThe sociable man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.
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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.
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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.
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Happiness requires three things, a good bank account, a good cook, and good digestion.
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Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
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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.
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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?
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What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.
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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
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He who pretends to look on death without fear lies. All men are afraid of dying, this is the great law of sentient beings, without which the entire human species would soon be destroyed.
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What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
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The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
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If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.
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It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
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Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU