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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAUIn 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.
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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Nothing on this earth is worth buying at the price of human blood.
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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..
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What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.
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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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I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
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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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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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I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.
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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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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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To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.
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I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
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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.
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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.
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Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU