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 ROUSSEAUTo renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.
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Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.
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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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I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.
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Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
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What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.
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Girls should learn that so much finery is only put on to hide defects, and that the triumph of beauty is to shine by itself.
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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 renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
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Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
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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.
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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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The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.
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However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
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The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
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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.
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It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
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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.
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Every artists wants to be applauded
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Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!
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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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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.
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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.
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There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.
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There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?
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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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