I only see clearly what I remember.

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgment. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education.

We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.