Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAUI feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature..
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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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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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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One does not drink. One gives a kiss to his glass, and the wine returns a caress to you.
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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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My birth was my first misfortune.
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It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
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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.
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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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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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I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.
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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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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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The man who meditates is a depraved animal.
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The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.
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Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive 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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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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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.
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To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.
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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.
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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 good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?
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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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It is pity in which the state of nature takes the place of laws, morals and virtues, with the added advantage that no one there is tempted to disobey its gentle voice.
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From this it follows that, the larger the State, the less the liberty.
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He who blushes is already guilty.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU