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 ROUSSEAUThe 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.
More Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
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A taste for ostentation is rarely associated in the same souls with a taste for honesty.
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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 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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To renounce freedom is to renounce one’s humanity, one’s rights as a man and equally one’s duties.
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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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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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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.
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What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
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Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
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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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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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It is a great evil for a Chief of a nation to be born the enemy of the freedom whose defender he should be.
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Oh, man! Live your own life and no longer be wretched!
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Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.
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The imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.
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