Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

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

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.

The greatest good is not wealth, but health.

To be ourselves is the greatest challenge in life.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

The more we are removed from the state of nature, the more we are in danger of falling into the state of war.

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

The general will is always right and tends to the public good.

Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void — is in fact, not a law.

The sovereignty of the people is inalienable.

The legislator is the engineer who invents the machine, the prince is only the workman who sets it in motion.

It is not good for man to be alone.

The only habit that a child should be allowed to form is that of forming none.

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education.

Childhood has its own ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling, which are proper to it.

The most dangerous of all enterprises is to make a man of himself.

The man who has lived most is not he who has counted most years but he who has most felt life.

To be truly free, we must not only be free from external constraints, but also from internal passions.