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An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced all common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth.

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
Trying
Principles
Things
Philosophy
Renounced
Time
Doubt
Evident
Common
Principle
Sense
Active
Truth
Intelligent
Self
Waste
Must
Prove

More quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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.]
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Whoever blushes is already guilty true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
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Reason deceives us conscience, never.
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There is a period of life when we go back as we advance. [Fr., Il est un terme de la vie au-dela duquel en retrograde en avancant.]
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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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The more humanity owes him, the more society denies him. Every door is shut against him, even when he has a right to its being opened: and if he ever obtains justice, it is with much greater difficulty than others obtain favors.
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The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
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Liberty is not to be found in any form of government she is in the heart of the free man he bears her with him everywhere.
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I only see clearly what I remember.
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I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.
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Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.
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Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
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The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.
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Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people would never adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of the surest means of distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.
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We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.
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The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.
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But remain the teacher of the young teachers. Advise and direct us, and we will be ready to learn. I will have need of you as long as I live.
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Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given to us by education.
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The taste for splendor is hardly ever combined in the same souls with the taste for the honorable.
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Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau