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.
Jean-Jacques RousseauGod is intelligent; but in what manner? Man is intelligent by the act of reasoning, but the supreme intelligence lies under no necessity to reason. He requires neither premise nor consequences; nor even the simple form of a proposition. His knowledge is purely intuitive. He beholds equally what is and what will be. All truths are to Him as one idea, as all places are but one point, and all times one moment.
Jean-Jacques RousseauFree people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
Jean-Jacques RousseauEvery free action has two causes that come together to produce it. One is moral, the will that determines the act; the other is physical, the power that executes the will to act.
Jean-Jacques RousseauAt first we will only skim the surface of the earth like young starlings, but soon, emboldened by practice and experience, we will spring into the air with the impetuousness of the eagle, diverting ourselves by watching the childish behavior of the little men or awling miserably around on the earth below us.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau