"People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society."
"At 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."
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Source: Jean Jacques Rousseau (2013). “Emile or Concerning Education”, p.40, Simon and Schuster
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"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."