Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow’s dark array, – Days of absence, I am weary; She I love is far away.

I hate books, they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage, the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? It is not to save time, but to squander it.

Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.

Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.

How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

The training of children is a profession where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

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.

We are born so to speak twice over, born into existence and born into life, born a human being and born a man.

I long remained a child and I am still one in many respects.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

God made me and broke the mold.

We are born weak we need strength, helpless we need aid, foolish we need reason. All that we lack at birth all that we need when we come to man's estate is the gift of education.