Philosopher · Swiss · 1712 – 1778 · 73 quotes
Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Philosopher · Swiss · 1712 – 1778
Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.
I may be no better, but at least I am different.
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.
A feeble body weakens the mind.
Childhood is the sleep of reason.
God made me and broke the mold.
Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
I only see clearly what I remember.
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.
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.
