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.
By doing good we become good.
There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.
Rather suffer an injustice than commit one.
Women, in general, are not attracted to art at all, nor knowledge, and not at all to genius.
He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.
War then, is a relation – not between man and man but between state and state and individuals are enemies only accidentally not as men, nor even as citizens but as soldiers not as members of their country, but as its defenders.
Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.
Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.
He certainly deserved the name better than those who had assumed it.
But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people...
Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.
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.
The falsification of history has done more to impede human development than any one thing known to mankind.
Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: “Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!
Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people’s thoughts.
The “sociable” man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.
Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society’s fault.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. It is plain than an ignorant person thinks everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody. But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning; he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more to be said, so he holds his peace.