358 Quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(Page 2 of 4)

I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.

Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason.

We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.

Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all?

The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.

Girls must be thwarted early in life.

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

Love childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace?

Inopportune consolations increase a deep sorrow.

It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man.

Everything degenerates in the hands of man.

In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just.

Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing it is out of the question.

It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry majority goes in need of necessities.

In the North the first words are, Help me; in the South, Love me.

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

For it is in our nature to endure patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.

I say to myself: Who are you to measure infinite power?

Chemistry... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation; she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes.

Tutto è bene quando esce dalle mani dell'Autore delle cose, tutto degenera fra le mani dell'uomo.

Even knaves may be made good for something.

Do not base your life on the judgments of others; first, because they are as likely to be mistaken as you are, and further, because you cannot know that they are telling you their true thoughts.

If all were perfect Christians, individuals would do their duty; the people would be obedient to the laws, the magistrates incorrupt, and there would be neither vanity nor luxury in such a state.

The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.

It is in man's heart that the life of nature's spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.

Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.

Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need someone to teach us the art of learning with difficulty.

We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.

Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.

Trust your heart rather than your head.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened.

I have suffered too much in this world not to hope for another.

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.

The strength of the people is effective only if it is concentrated; it evaporates and is lost when it is dispersed, just as gunpowder scattered on the ground ignites only grain by grain.

Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.

The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.

The falsification of history has done more to impede human development than any one thing known to mankind.

The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.

Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they.

If he who has control of men ought not to control the laws, then he who controls the laws ought not control men: otherwise his laws would minister to his passions.

The only moral lesson which is suited for a child -- the most important lesson for every time of life -- is this: 'Never hurt anybody.

There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.

He who pretends to look on death without fear lies. All men are afraid of dying, this is the great law of sentient beings, without which the entire human species would soon be destroyed.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

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.

A paralyzed man who wants to walk OR an agile man who does not want to walk will both remain neutral in nature.

With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.

Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.

Women speak at an earlier age, more easily, and more agreeably than men; they are accused also of speaking more; this is as it should be, and I willingly change the reproach into a eulogy.

The truth brings no man a fortune.

To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.

We have to have powder for our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.

Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.