We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
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Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.
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One of the proofs that the taste of flesh is not natural to man is the indifference which children exhibit for that sort of meat, and the preference they all give to vegetable foods, such as milk-porridge, pastry, fruits, etc. It is of the last importance not to de-naturalize them of this primitive taste and not to render them carnivorous, if not for health reasons, at least for the sake of their character. For, however the experience may be explained, it is certain that great eaters of flesh are, in general, more cruel and ferocious than other men. This observation is true of all places and of all times.
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The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.
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The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche.
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Happiness a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.
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English coarseness is well known. The Gaures, on the contrary, are the gentlest of men. All savages are cruel, and it is not their morals that urge them to be so; this cruelty proceeds from their food. They go to war as to the chase, and treat men as they do bears. Even in England the butchers are not received as legal witnesses any more than surgeons. And great criminals harden themselves to murder by drinking [animal] blood.
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The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service.
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Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
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Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid.
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One is only happy before he is happy
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I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of beings, in identifying myself with the whole of nature
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He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
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Your first appearance, he said to me, is the gauge by which you will be measured; try to manage that you may go beyond yourself in after times, but beware of ever doing less.
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Every animal (of the higher species) has ideas, since he has senses. He even combines his ideas up to a certain point, and man differs, in this respect, only in the more or less. Some philosophic writers have even advanced that there is more difference between this man and that man, than between this man and that (non-human) animal. It is not, therefore, intelligence so much as his quality of being a free agent which makes the difference.
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It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.
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Accent is the soul of language it gives to it both feeling and truth.
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Jean Jacques Rousseau ... is nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and a...
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One loses all the time which he might employ to better purpose.
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The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
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The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.
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I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.
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Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.
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God made me and broke the mold.
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Man was born free, but is everywhere in bondage.
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If you take a look at the supply-demand fundamentals in the world, there's not a lot of excess supply available or much coming on line.
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No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
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We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced
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The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it
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To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.
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