Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Chemistry... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation; she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes.

Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

All that time is lost which might be better employed.

...in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.

Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?

We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.

We have to have powder for our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

No one is happy unless he respects himself.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

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

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Since men cannot create new forces, but merely combine and control those which already exist, the only way in which they can preserve themselves is by uniting their separate powers in a combination strong enough to overcome any resistance, uniting them so that their powers are directed by a single motive and act in concert.

Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing.

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.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

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