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QUOTES AND IMAGES: CONFESSIONS OF ROUSSEAU




CONFESSIONS OF ROUSSEAU


By Jean Jacques Rousseau




A feeling heart the foundation of all
my misfortunes

A religion preached by such
missionaries must lead to paradise!

A subject not even fit to make a priest
of

A man, on being questioned, is
immediately on his guard

Adopted the jargon of books, than the
knowledge they contained

All animals are distrustful of man, and
with reason

All your evils proceed from yourselves!

An author must be independent of
success

Ardor for learning became so far a
madness

Aversion to singularity

Avoid putting our interests in
competition with our duty

Being beat like a slave, I judged I had
a right to all vices

Bilboquet

Catholic must content himself with the
decisions of others

Caution is needless after the evil has
happened

Cemented by reciprocal esteem

Considering this want of decency as an
act of courage

Conversations were more serviceable
than his prescriptions

Degree of sensuality had mingled with
the smart and shame

Die without the aid of physicians

Difficult to think nobly when we think
for a livelihood

Dine at the hour of supper; sup when I
should have been asleep

Disgusted with the idle trifling of a
convent

Dissembler, though, in fact, I was only
courteous

Dying for love without an object

Endeavoring to hide my incapacity, I
rarely fail to show it

Endeavoring to rise too high we are in
danger of falling

Ever appearing to feel as little for
others as herself

Finding in every disease symptoms
similar to mine

First instance of violence and
oppression is so deeply engraved

First time in my life, of saying, "I
merit my own esteem"

Flattery, or rather condescension, is
not always a vice

Force me to be happy in the manner they
should point out

Foresight with me has always embittered
enjoyment

Hastening on to death without having
lived

Hat, only fit to be carried under his
arm

Have the pleasure of seeing an ass ride
on horseback

Have ever preferred suffering to owing

Her excessive admiration or dislike of
everything

Hold fast to aught that I have, and yet
covet nothing more

Hopes, in which self-love was by no
means a loser

How many wrongs are effaced by the
embraces of a friend!

I never much regretted sleep

I strove to flatter my idleness

I never heard her speak ill of persons
who were absent

I loved her too well to wish to possess
her

I felt no dread but that of being
detected

I was long a child, and am so yet in
many particulars

I am charged with the care of myself
only

I only wished to avoid giving offence

I did not fear punishment, but I
dreaded shame

I had a numerous acquaintance, yet no
more than two friends

Idea of my not being everything to her

Idleness is as much the pest of society
as of solitude

If you have nothing to do, you must
absolutely speak continually

In the course of their lives frequently
unlike themselves

In company I suffer cruelly by inaction

In a nation of blind men, those with
one eye are kings

Indolence, negligence and delay in
little duties to be fulfilled

Indolence of company is burdensome
because it is forced

Injustice of mankind which embitters
both life and death

Insignificant trash that has obtained
the name of education

Instead of being delighted with the
journey only wished arrival

Is it possible to dissimulate with
persons whom we love?

Jean Bapiste Rousseau

Knew how to complain, but not how to
act

Law that the accuser should be confined
at the same time

Left to nature the whole care of my own
instruction

Less degree of repugnance in divulging
what is really criminal

Letters illustrious in proportion as it
was less a trade

Loaded with words and redundancies

Looking on each day as the last of my
life

Love of the marvellous is natural to
the human heart

Make men like himself, instead of
taking them as they were

Making their knowledge the measure of
possibilities

Making me sensible of every deficiency

Manoeuvres of an author to the care of
publishing a good book

Men, in general, make God like
themselves

Men of learning more tenaciously retain
their prejudices

Mistake wit for sense

Moment I acquired literary fame, I had
no longer a friend

Money that we possess is the instrument
of liberty

Money we lack and strive to obtain is
the instrument of slavery

More stunned than flattered by the
trumpet of fame

More folly than candor in the
declaration without necessity

Multiplying persons and adventures

My greatest faults have been omissions

Myself the principal object

Necessity, the parent of industry,
suggested an invention

Neither the victim nor witness of any
violent emotions

No sooner had lost sight of men than I
ceased to despise them

No longer permitted to let old people
remain out of Paris

Not so easy to quit her house as to
enter it

Not knowing how to spend their time,
daily breaking in upon me

Nothing absurd appears to them
incredible

Obliged to pay attention to every
foolish thing uttered

Obtain their wishes, without permitting
or promising anything

One of those affronts which women
scarcely ever forgive

Only prayer consisted in the single
interjection "Oh!"

Painful to an honest man to resist
desires already formed

Passed my days in languishing in
silence for those I most admire

Piety was too sincere to give way to
any affectation of it

Placing unbounded confidence in myself
and others

Prescriptions serve to flatter the
hopes of the patient

Priests ought never to have children--
except by married women

Proportioned rather to her ideas than
abilities

Protestants, in general, are better
instructed

Rather bashful than modest

Rather appeared to study with than to
instruct me

Read the hearts of others by
endeavoring to conceal our own

Read description of any malady without
thinking it mine

Read without studying

Remorse wakes amid the storms of
adversity

Remorse sleeps in the calm sunshine of
prosperity

Reproach me with so many contradictions

Return of spring seemed to me like
rising from the grave

Rogues know how to save themselves at
the expense of the feeble

Satisfaction of weeping together

Seeking, by fresh offences, a return of
the same chastisement

Sin consisted only in the scandal

Slighting her favors, if within your
reach, a unpardonable crime

Sometimes encourage hopes they never
mean to realize

Substituting cunning to knowledge

Supposed that certain, which I only
knew to be probable

Taught me it was not so terrible to
thieve as I had imagined

That which neither women nor authors
ever pardon

The malediction of knaves is the glory
of an honest man

The conscience of the guilty would
revenge the innocent

There is nothing in this world but time
and misfortune

There is no clapping of hands before
the king

This continued desire to control me in
all my wishes

Though not a fool, I have frequently
passed for one

To make him my apologies for the
offence he had given me

True happiness is indescribable, it is
only to be felt

Trusting too implicitly to their own
innocence

Tyranny of persons who called
themselves my friends

Virtuous minds, which vice never
attacks openly

Voltaire was formed never to be (happy)

We learned to dissemble, to rebel, to
lie

What facility everything which favors
the malignity of man

When once we make a secret of anything
to the person we love

When everyone is busy, you may continue
silent

Whence comes it that even a child can
intimidate a man

Where merit consists in belief, and not
in virtue

Whole universe would be interested in
my concerns

Whose discourses began by a
distribution of millions

Wish thus to be revenged of me for
their humiliation

Without the least scruple, freely
disposing of my time

Writing for bread would soon have
extinguished my genius

Yielded him the victory, or rather
declined the contest

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