Authors:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes - Page 14

All Quotes Abuse Adversity Age Art Atheism Birth Character Childhood Children Conscience Country Death Democracy Desire Dignity Doubt Earth Education Evil Faith Feelings Freedom Genius Giving Happiness Hate Heart Humanity Imagination Innocence Inspirational Jesus Judging Judgment Justice Knowledge Laughter Liberty Life Love Lying Money Morality Motivational Nature Obedience Passion Philosophy Politics Prejudice Reading Revolution Risk Science Scripture Silence Slavery Sleep Social Contract Soul Success Suffering Talent Teaching Time Truth War Writing
My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to be in wintertime; if I want to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be enclosed within walls; and I have said a hundred

My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are.... If I want to depict spring, it has to be in wintertime; if I want to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be enclosed within walls; and I have said a hundred times that if I were put in the Bastille, there I would paint a picture of liberty.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Beautiful, Wall, Truth

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Men, Forgiving, Ordinary

Leave those vain moralists, my friend, and return to the depth of your soul: that is where you will always rediscover the source of the sacred fire which so often inflamed us with love of the sublime virtues; that is where you will see the eternal image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a holy enthusiasm.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Fire, Inspire, Soul
'La Nouvelle Hèloise' (1761, ed. M. Launay, 1967) pt. 2, letter 11

Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Taste And Judgment, Speak, Microscopes

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Sympathy, Philosophy, Philosophical

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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Country, Men, Perfect
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G. D. H. Cole (2003). “On the Social Contract”, p.74, Courier Corporation

Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity, and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Order, Sick, Grace
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1783). “Emilius and Sophia: Or, A New System of Education”, p.186

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Kings, Philosophy, Thinking
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1971). “The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Believe, Book, Abuse
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “Emile: Or, On Education”, p.450, Basic Books

Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Men, Society, Human Nature

What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, civil as well as political.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Communication, Government, Law
"The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Two "Discourses" and the "Social Contract"".

Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Self, Earth, May
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile”, p.292, Courier Corporation

A citizen should render to the state all the services he can as soon as the sovereign demands them.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Citizens, Demand, Sovereign
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2010). “The Basic Political Writings (Second Edition)”, p.174, Hackett Publishing

I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
People, Different, May
"Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau". Book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Book 1, 182.

Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Adversity, Sleep, Insomnia
"Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau". Book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1782.

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Unique, Being Unique, May

For it is in our nature to endure patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Fate, Ill Will, Endurance
Jean Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile or Concerning Education”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

Men speak from knowledge, women from imagination.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Men, Imagination, Speak

Every blue-stocking will remain a spinster as long as there are sensible men on the earth. [Fr., Toute fille lettree restera fille toute sa vie, quand il n'y aura que des hommes senses sur la terre.]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Women, Blue, Long

The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Writing, Soul, Desire

Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Guilt, Innocence, Shame

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Simple, Vanity, Ego
Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Jean-Jacgues Rousseau Emile or On Education”, Рипол Классик

I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: "Well, let them eat cake".

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Princess, Cake, Bread
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1971). “The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau”

There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Men, Vanity, Fool

To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Men, Years, Giving
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “Emile: Or, On Education”, p.42, Basic Books

You May Also Like: