Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

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

God made me and broke the mold.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.

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.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

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

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

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

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.