I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAUThe imagination which causes so many ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages.
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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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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Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
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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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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 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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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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There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.
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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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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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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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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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What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?
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Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
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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.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU