Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote addresses the concept of individual rights in life-threatening situations and the morality of desperate actions.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's quote reflects on the moral implications of self-preservation, suggesting that individuals have the inherent right to take risks with their own lives to save themselves from harm. By using the metaphor of someone jumping out of a window to escape a fire, he provokes thought about the nature of choices made under extreme duress, emphasizing the distinction between survival instincts and moral culpability.
Themes
LifeRiskSelf-PreservationMoralityChoices
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on the ethics of risk-taking, this quote could be used to discuss the complexity of human decisions under pressure.
More from Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All quotes →The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.
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What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
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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.
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Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.
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As evening approached, I came down from the heights of the island, and I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge me into delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
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