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The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural it is neither tedious nor frivolous it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.

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
Gay
Instructive
Brilliant
Pedantry
Neither
Affectation
Conversation
Gallant
Natural
Frivolous
Without
Polished
Good
Tedious
Tone
Equivocation

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Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame.
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But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.
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Chemistry... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes.
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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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Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in experiments and to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use those senses...The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those which nature has provided every one of us.
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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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Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.
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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.
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To try to conceal our own heart is a bad means to read that of others.
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Every artists wants to be applauded
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I do not know is a phrase which becomes us.
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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.
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In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a gaurantee of impunity.
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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.
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There is a period in life when we go backwards as we advance.
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Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.
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The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading.
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Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.
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A blue-stocking is the scourge of her husband, children, friends, servants, and every one. [Fr., Une femme bel-esprit est le fleau de son mari, de ses enfants, de ses amis, de ses valets, et tout le monde.]
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It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau