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In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Age: 66 †
Born: 1712
Born: June 28
Died: 1778
Died: July 2
Autobiographer
Botanist
Choreographer
Composer
Correspondent
Encyclopédistes
Essayist
Literary
Music Critic
Music Theorist
Musicologist
Genève
J. J. Rousseau
Rousseau
Jean Jaques Rousseau
Jean Jeacques Rousseau
John James Rousseau
Johann Jacob Rousseau
Juan Jacobo Rousseau
Jan Jakub Rouseau
Gian Giacomo Rousseau
Lu-so
G. G. Rousseau
Zhan Zhak Russo
Citizen of Geneva
Citoyen de Genève
Jean Jacques
May
Result
Wounds
Injure
Always
Missing
Strikes
Ills
Concerned
Seriously
Deliberately
Results
Deeply
Wound
Hand
Miss
Roof
Tile
Fall
Intention
Falls
Malevolent
Hands
Blow
Stone
Tiles
Home
Stones
Thrown
Befall

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Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?
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If Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus Christ died like a God.
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Smell is the sense of memory and desire.
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The empire of woman is an empire of softness, of address, of complacency. Her commands are caresses, her menaces are tears.
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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.
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When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.
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Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.
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There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, Is it good in itself? In the second, Can it be easily put into practice?
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No one is happy unless he respects himself.
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If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.
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Since men cannot create new forces, but merely combine and control those which already exist, the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert.
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Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
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I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.
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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.
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Abstaining so as really to enjoy, is the epicurism, the very perfection, of reason.
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Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. It is strange that these voices often contradict each other?
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Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
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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.
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As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.
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The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau