What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?

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

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart.

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

The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?

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

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

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

We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

So long as chastity is preserved, it is respected; it is despised only after having been lost.

I know that [civilized men] do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains.... But when I see [barbarous man] sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.

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.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Emile: Or, On Education

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

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Émilius: Or, A Treatise on Education

Nothing is more difficult than to distinguish in children real stupidity from that apparent and deceitful stupidity, which is the precursor of great men.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, attributed, Day's Collacon

The only talent worthy of Rome is that of conquering the world.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences

The man who is most slow in promising is most sure to keep his word.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, attributed, Day's Collacon

Thinkers are seldom gamblers; gambling interrupts the habit of thought and turns it towards barren combinations; thus one good result, perhaps the only good result of the taste for science, is that it deadens to some extent this vulgar passion; people will prefer to try to discover the uses of play rather than to devote themselves to it. I should argue with the gamblers against gambling, and I should find more delight in scoffing at their losses than in winning their money.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Emile

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