Quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.

Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.

Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.

How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?

The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.

Base souls have no faith in great individuals.

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty.

Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow's dark array, - Days of absence, I am weary; She I love is far away.

A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please.

Self-love makes more libertines than love.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature and that man will be myself.

To live is not breathing it is action.

At length I recollected the thoughtless saying of a great princess, who, on being informed that the country people had no bread, replied, "Let them eat cake."

We are born weak, we need strength helpless, we need aid foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.

I shall always maintain that whoso says in his heart, "There is no God," while he takes the name of God upon his lips, is either a liar or a madman.

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.

He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid.

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