All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.
Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.
The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.
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.
Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.
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.
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.
The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.
Everything degenerates in the hands of man.
The truth brings no man a fortune.
I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.
Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires.
The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.
I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.