It is not so much the understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the human quality of freedom...and it … - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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It is not so much the understanding that constitutes the specific difference between the man and the brute, as the human quality of freedom...and it is particularly in his consciousness of this liberty that the spirituality of his soul is displayed. For physics may explain in some degree the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing or rather of choosing, and in the feeling of this power, nothing is to be found but acts which are purely spiritual and wholly inexplicable by the laws of mechanism

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About Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Citizen of Geneva Jean Jacques Rousseau J. J. Rousseau Rousseau J.J. Rousseau JJ Rousseau
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Additional quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

No, let us not wrong humanity so greatly, let us not think that an amiable and virtuous man is a figment of the imagination. He exists, he lives, perhaps he is seeking me; he is seeking a soul which is capable of love for him.

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