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 ROUSSEAUMy 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.
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
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Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.
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I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.
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The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
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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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The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.
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He who blushes is already guilty.
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To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
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Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!
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Nothing on this earth is worth buying at the price of human blood.
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Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
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The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘this is mine’, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.
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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.
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The 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.
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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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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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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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Oh, man! Live your own life and no longer be wretched!
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Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
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Happiness requires three things, a good bank account, a good cook, and good digestion.
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To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.
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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.
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Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.
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What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.
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What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?
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To do is to be.
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