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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

Being wealthy isn’t just a question of having lots of money. It’s a question of what we want. Wealth isn’t an absolute, it’s relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can’t afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Desire Money Philosophy Rich Seek Time
What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Goodness Oneself Survive
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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Beginning Goodness Love Writing
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Humanity Liberty Man Right
I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Hate Myself Talk Teaching
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
Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Happiness Nature People
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
My birth was my first misfortune.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born Misfortune Myself
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
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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Age Care Himself Judgement Law Man Philosophy Reason
There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Deep Desire Enough Need Peace Prison
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Born Freedom Man Philosophy
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
To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Deep Mad One Liner Sanity World
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