We may add that frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or remissness on the part of the government. There is not a single ill-doer who co… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.

There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good. The State has no right to put to death, even for the sake of making an example, any one whom it can leave alive without danger.

Whoever is endowed with a power superior to mankind, should also be above the weakness of humanity, without which, that excess of strength would, in effect, only sink him below the most feeble, or what he would actually have been, had he remained their equal.

I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work.

The earth would be covered with men amongst whom there world would be almost no communication; we would make contact at some points without being united by a single one; everyone would remain isolated amongst the rest, everyone would think only of himself; our understanding would not develop; we would live without sensing anything, we would die without having lived; our entire happiness would consist of not knowing our misery; there would be neither goodness in our hearts, nor morality in our actions, and we would never have tasted the most delicious sentiment of the soul, which is the love of virtue.