Behold the works of our philosophers; with all their pompous diction, how mean and contemptible they are by comparison with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? Jean-Jacques Rousseau More Quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau More Quotes From Jean-Jacques Rousseau People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society. Jean-Jacques Rousseau innocenceevilpeople There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened. Jean-Jacques Rousseau your-sidefourstories Freedom is the power to choose our own chains Jean-Jacques Rousseau chains People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. Jean-Jacques Rousseau humorousinspirationallife I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery. Jean-Jacques Rousseau libertyfreedompolitical Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts? Jean-Jacques Rousseau shouldheart Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education. Jean-Jacques Rousseau educationalstupidmen The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want. Jean-Jacques Rousseau doewantlying The man who gets the most out of life is not the one who has lived it longest, but the one who has felt life most deeply. Jean-Jacques Rousseau he-manmenlife Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray. Jean-Jacques Rousseau passionmentwo Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau treatsmoralitypeople The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: "Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one! Jean-Jacques Rousseau menwarbelieve I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices. Jean-Jacques Rousseau paradoxprejudicemen Do you not know...that a child badly taught is farther from being wise than one not taught at all? Jean-Jacques Rousseau taughtwisechildren What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? Jean-Jacques Rousseau wisdomkindnessinspirational Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces. Jean-Jacques Rousseau raceevilcivilization No one is happy unless he respects himself. Jean-Jacques Rousseau self-respectethicsrespect 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. Jean-Jacques Rousseau mistakenjudgmentfirsts I love idleness. I love to busy myself about trifles, to begin a hundred things and not finish one of them, to come and go as my fancy bids me, to change my plan every moment, to follow a fly in all its circlings, to try and uproot a rock to see what is underneath, eagerly to begin a ten-years' task to give it up after ten minutes: in short, to fritter away the whole day inconsequentially and incoherently, and to follow nothing but the whim of the moment. Jean-Jacques Rousseau rocksgivingyears Education is either from nature, from man or from things. The developing of our faculties and organs is the education of nature; that of man is the application we learn to make of this very developing; and that of things is the experience we acquire in regard to the different objects by which we are affected. All that we have not at our birth, and that we stand in need of at the years of maturity, is the gift of education. Jean-Jacques Rousseau maturityeducationinspirational
