What do I have to fear from them now that everything is over? Since they can no longer make things any worse for me, they can no longer frighten me. … - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
""
What do I have to fear from them now that everything is over? Since they can no longer make things any worse for me, they can no longer frighten me. Anxiety and terror are ills from which they have delivered me for ever: this is real relief for me. Real ills have little hold over me; I deal easily with those that I actually experience, but not with those that I fear. My fevered imagination adds them together, turns them over and over, draws them out and increases them. The expectation of them tortures me a hundred times more than their actual presence, and the threat of them is far worse than the blow itself. As soon as they happen, the experience of them strips them of their imagined aura and cuts them down to their true size.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a major French-speaking Genevan philosopher of Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Maurice Quentin de La Tour (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Citizen of Geneva
•
Jean Jacques Rousseau
•
J. J. Rousseau
•
Rousseau
•
J.J. Rousseau
•
JJ Rousseau
ils n’ont plus fait, par leurs formules, qu’une religion de mots, vu qu’il en coûte peu de prescrire l’impossible quand on se dispense de le pratiquer.
No hay día que no recuerde con gozo y ternura aquel único y breve tiempo de mi vida en que fui plenamente yo, sin mezcla y sin traba, y en que puedo realmente decir que he vivido.
Go Premium
Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.
