"People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society."
"An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced all common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth."
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Source: Du Contrat Social bk. 3, ch. 15 (1762)
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More quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery."
"There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened."
"Freedom is the power to choose our own chains"
"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."
"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."