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 ROUSSEAUEverything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.
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In respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.
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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 am a hundred times happier in my solitude than I could be if I lived among them.
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Oh, man! Live your own life and no longer be wretched!
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I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
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Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.
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We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.
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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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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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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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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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Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!
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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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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