Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is an error to distinguish the moral from the physical in man.

Every sentiment of love is a sentiment of pleasure.

The sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, has no interest a part from theirs.

If I am not better, at least I am different.

It is only the greatest crimes that need to be hidden.

The truth is not in things, but in you.

To be truly good, we must be independent.

The state of society is a state of war.

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine', and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

Women do wrong to complain of the inequality of man-made laws; this inequality is not of man's making, or at any rate it is not the result of mere prejudice, but of reason.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

I may be no better than other people, but at least I am different.

Conscience! Conscience! Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, sure guide of a being ignorant and limited, but intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil, which makes man like unto God!

To be ourselves is the most difficult thing in life.

Civilization is a thin and precarious crust, which can be broken through at any moment by the earthquake from below.

The greatest pleasure of life is love.

My greatest fault has been to be too easily led, and my greatest virtue to have always recognized and avoided the errors into which I was led.

The general will is always upright and always tends to the public advantage; but the deliberations of the people do not always have the same rectitude.

A man who has been aroused by a woman's modesty will be more deeply moved by her charms.

The rich man, in his bed of down, does not know the value of the poor man's sleep.