Quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

He who is most slow in making a promise is the most faithful in performance of it.

If I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority?

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.

Smell is the sense of memory and desire.

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.

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.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all.

I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

Finance is a slave's word.

I may not amount to much but at least I am unique.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

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

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.