This is how in every condition the guilty strong person saves himself at the expense of the innocent weak one... - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If one divided all of human science into two parts - the one common to all men, the other particular to the learned - the latter would be quite small in comparison with the former. But we are hardly aware of what is generally attained, because it is attained without thought and even before the age of reason; because, moreover, learning is noticed only by its differences, and as in algebraic equations, common quantities count for nothing.

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.

As long as we desire, we can do without happiness: we expect to achieve it. If happiness fails to come, hope persists, and the charm of illusion lasts as long as the passion that causes it. So this condition is sufficient in itself, and the anxiety it inflicts is a sort of enjoyment that compensates for reality… Woe to him who has nothing left to desire… We enjoy less what we obtain than what we hope for, and we are happy only before being happy.