I can be free only to the extent that others are forbidden to profit from their physical, economic, or other superiority to the detriment of my liberty.

At this point, an urgent question arises: [...] Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being, one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism? Briefly, is the division of labor, at the same time that it is a law of nature, also a moral rule of human conduct; and, if it has this latter character, why and in what degree?

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.

It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh.

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.

Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.