Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man. He forces one soil to nourish the prod… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man

Ce principe établi, il s'ensuit que la femme est faite spécialement pour plaire à l'homme. Si l'homme doit lui plaire à son tour, c'est d'une nécessité moins directe : son mérite est dans sa puissance ; il plaît par cela seul qu'il est fort. Ce n'est pas ici la loi de l'amour, j'en conviens ; mais c'est celle de la nature, antérieure à l'amour même.

You fail to perceive that it is a greater waste of time to use it ill than to do nothing, and that a child ill taught is further from virtue than a child who has learnt nothing at all. You are afraid to see him spending his early years doing nothing. What! is it nothing to be happy, nothing to run and jump all day? He will never be so busy again all his life long.

Our gardens are decorated with statues and our galleries with paintings. What do you think these artistic masterpieces on show for public admiration represent? The defenders of our country? Or those even greater men who have enriched it with their virtues? No. They are images of all the errors of the heart and mind, carefully derived from ancient mythology, and presented to our children's curiosity at a young age, no doubt so that they may have right before their eyes models of bad actions even before they know how to read.