Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.

If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.

Generally we obtain very surely and very speedily what we are not too anxious to obtain.

Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they.

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.

There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?

Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.