Jean-Jacques Rousseau

All that time is lost which might be better employed.

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

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

The very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affair, however little influence my voice may have in them.

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.

Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the author of things, everything degenerates in the hands of man.'

Men, be kind to your fellow-men; this is your first duty, kind to every age and station, kind to all that is not foreign to humanity. What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

The happiest is he who suffers least; the most miserable is he who enjoys least.

Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless

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

Blushes are the sign of guilt; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

Shall we say that the gospel story is the work of the imagination? My friend, such things are not imagined; and the doings of Socrates, which no one doubts, are less well attested than those of Jesus Christ. At best, you only put the difficulty from you; it would be still more incredible that several persons should have agreed together to invent such a book, than that there was one man who supplied its subject matter

He who knows enough of things to value them at their true worth never says too much; for he can also judge of the attention bestowed on him and the interest aroused by what he says. People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little

A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please; the one needs knowledge, the other taste; utility should be the man's object; the woman speaks to give pleasure. There should be nothing in common but truth.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken.

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.

To live is not merely to breathe: it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties — of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence.

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

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.