Top 396 Quotes & Sayings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Page 5

It has always pleased me to read while eating if I have no companion; it gives me the society I lack. I devour alternately a page and a mouthful; it is as though my book were dining with me.

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

From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to be the beginning of the exercise of our duty.

This dog, which, although no beauty, was of an uncommon breed, I had made my friend and companion; and it certainly deserved the name better than the majority of those who had assumed it.

War is then not a relationship between one man and another, but a relationship between one State and another, in which individuals are enemies only by accident, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers; not as members of the fatherland, but as its defenders. Finally, any State can only have other States, and not men, as enemies, inasmuch as it is impossible to fix a true relation between things of different natures.

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.

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like. v One could wish no easier death than that of Socrates, calmly discussing philosophy with his friends; one could fear nothing worse than that of Jesus, dying in torment, among the insults, the mockery, the curses of the whole nation. In the midst of these terrible sufferings, Jesus prays for his cruel murderers. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, the life and death of Christ are those of a God.

If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable to men.

Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous; it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.

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.

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?

A man who is not a fool can rid himself of every folly except vanity.

Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.

Let it not, therefore, be said that the Sovereign is not subject to the laws of his State; since the contrary is a true proposition of the right of nations, which flattery has sometimes attacked but good princes have always defended as the tutelary divinity of their dominions. How much more legitimate is it to say with the wise Plato, that the perfect felicity of a kingdom consists in the obedience of subjects to their prince, and of the prince to the laws, and in the laws being just and constantly directed to the public good!

And when the relics of humanity left among the Spaniards induced them to forbid their lawyers to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence? May it not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all the outrages they had committed against the unhappy Indians?

As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.

Temperance and labor are the two real physicians of man.

At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

Singing and dancing alone will not advance one in the world. [Fr., Qui bien chante et bien danse fait un metier qui peu avance.]

Smell is the sense of memory and desire.

Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.

I was not much afraid of punishment, I was only afraid of disgrace.But that I feared more than death, more than crime, more than anything in the world. I should have rejoiced if the earth had swallowed me up and stifled me in the abyss. But my invincible sense of shame prevailed over everything . It was my shame that made me impudent, and the more wickedly I behaved the bolder my fear of confession made me. I saw nothing but the horror of being found out, of being publicly proclaimed, to my face, as a thief, as a liar, and slanderer.

Whence do I get my rules of conduct? I find them in my heart. Whatever I feel to be good is good. Whatever I feel to be evil is evil. Conscience is the best of casuists.

He who has the base necessities of life should pay nothing; taxation on him who has a surplus may, if need be; extend to everything beyond necessities.

We can never put ourselves in the shoes of children; we cannot fathom their thoughts, we lend them ours; and always following ourown reasoning, we stuff their heads with extravagance and error.

Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing.

Even knaves may be made good for something.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.

Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.

But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.

We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.

Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them.

That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.

Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero.

At first we will only skim the surface of the earth like young starlings, but soon, emboldened by practice and experience, we will spring into the air with the impetuousness of the eagle, diverting ourselves by watching the childish behavior of the little men or awling miserably around on the earth below us.

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

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

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

If Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus Christ died like a God.

Ah, that is a perfume in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to open the door to take in all the aroma.

For, as I think I have said, I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.

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

Consolation indiscreetly pressed upon us, when we are suffering undue affliction, only serves to increase our pain, and to render our grief more poignant.

The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.

The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.

The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.

The truth brings no man a fortune.

The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.

Every artists wants to be applauded

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

There is a period in life when we go backwards as we advance.

Finance is a slave's word.

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart.

To abstain that we may enjoy is the epicurianism of reason.

Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all.

Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.