There is, I feel, an age at which the individual man would want to stop: you will seek the age at which you would desire your Species had stopped. Di… - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

D'où vient la faiblesse de l'homme ? De l'inégalité qui se trouve entre sa force et ses désirs. Ce sont nos passions qui nous rendent faibles, parce qu'il faudrait pour les contenter plus de forces que ne nous en donna la nature. Diminuez donc les désirs, c'est comme si vous augmentiez les forces : celui qui peut plus qu'il ne désire en a de reste ; il est certainement un être très fort.

ويقوم مذهبه على كون الإنسان صالحًا بطبيعته محبًّا للعدل والنظام، فأفسده المجتمع وجعله بائسًا، والمجتمع سيئ لأنه لا يساوي بين الناس والمنافع، والتملك جائز لأنه مقتطَعٌ من الملك الشائع الذي يجب أن يكون خاصًّا بالإنسانية وحدها، فيجب أن يقضي على المجتمع إذن، وأن يرجع إلى الطبيعة،

There is, I am sensible, an age at which every individual of you would choose to stop; and you will look out for the age at which, had you your wish, your species had stopped. Uneasy at your present condition for reasons which threaten your unhappy posterity with still greater uneasiness, you will perhaps wish it were in your power to go back; and this sentiment ought to be considered, as the panegyric of your first parents, the condemnation of you contemporaries, and a source of terror to all those who may have the misfortune of succeeding you.