QuoteProject
Teach him to live rather than to avoid death: life is not breath, but action, the use of our senses, our mind, our faculties, every part of ourselves which makes us conscious of our being. Life consists less in length of days than in the keen sense of living. A man maybe buried at a hundred and may never have lived at all. He would have fared better had he died young.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Live fully and consciously rather than merely existing.

In this quote, Rousseau emphasizes that the essence of life is not merely measured by the length of days lived, but rather by the depth and quality of one's experiences and actions. He argues that a life devoid of meaningful engagement with the world is a life unlived, suggesting that true fulfillment comes from actively participating in the richness of existence rather than simply avoiding death.

Themes

LifeActionExistenceConsciousnessExperience

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about living life to the fullest.

More from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
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.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
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

Similar quotes

He who acts under an emotional impulse also acts. What distinguishes an emotional action from other actions is the valuation of input and output. Emotions disarrange valuations. Inflamed with passion, man sees the goal as more desirable and the price he has to pay for it as less burdensome than he would in cool deliberation.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Lin BiaoRead
Sanctification is not a work of nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of character effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.
Charles HodgeRead
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
William J. ClintonRead
For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.
Eleanor CattonRead
In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.
Tony KushnerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.