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If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and determined that love of solitude which I have retained ever since that time.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Imagination Love Myself Solitude Time
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
The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Animal Man
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
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

Law Man Material Truth
I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Choice Man Myself
What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Goodness Happiness Opinion Ourselves Philosophy Self Love
But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Citizen Force Greatness Imagination People Philosophy Soul World
What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Goodness Oneself Survive
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

Destroy Equality Intelligence Law Man Nature Strength
I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

God Himself Myself Religious Spiritual
Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Dignity Goodness Man Pay Truth
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
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
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 force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke a duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Force Need Obligation Philosophy