Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

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

I only see clearly what I remember.

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

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?