Ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each man an absolute power over all his members, the social compact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members." "We grant that each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of his power, his goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence.

Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?

The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.

I loved too sincerely, too completely, I venture to say, to be able to be happy easily.

Innocence is ashamed of nothing.