{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/it-is-not-easy", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/it-is-not-easy.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/it-is-not-easy.md", "id": "4d50bb1d-0a7a-429a-b435-e8a023f20d53", "slug": "it-is-not-easy", "text": "It is not easy for a man to begin to think; but when once he has begun he will never leave off. Once a thinker, always a thinker, and the understanding once practised in reflection will never rest. You may therefore think that I do too much or too little; that the human mind is not by nature so quick to unfold; and that after having given it opportunities it has not got, I keep it too long confined within a circle of ideas which it ought to have outgrown. But remember, in the first place, that when I want to train a natural man, I do not want to make him a savage and to send him back to the woods, but that living in the whirl of social life it is enough that he should not let himself be carried away by the passions and prejudices of men; let him see with his eyes and feel with his heart, let him own no sway but that of reason. Under these conditions it is plain that many things will strike him; the oft-recurring feelings which affect him, the different ways of satisfying his real needs, must give him many ideas he would not otherwise have acquired or would only have acquired much later. The natural progress of the mind is quickened but not reversed. The same man who would remain stupid in the forests should become wise and reasonable in towns, if he were merely a spectator in them.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Jean Jacques Rousseau", "slug": "jean-jacques-rousseau", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau" }, "book": { "title": "Emile; or On Education", "slug": "emile-or-on-education", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "thinking", "slug": "thinking", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/thinking" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_IV", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:39:35", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "f9addfa9-a0ca-4ffe-8f74-8adf51607317", "slug": "where-is-the-man", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/where-is-the-man", "text": "Where is the man who owes nothing to the land in which he lives? Whatever that land may be, he owes to it the most precious thing possessed by man, the morality of his actions and the love of virtue.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "homeland", "slug": "homeland", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/homeland" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_V", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:17" }, { "id": "fd1e8dc4-3494-489f-bd85-64f0284b2d67", "slug": "gluttony-is-the", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/gluttony-is-the", "text": "Gluttony is the vice of feeble minds. The gourmand has his brains in his palate, he can do nothing but eat; he is so stupid and incapable that the table is the only place for him, and dishes are the only things he knows anything about. Let us leave him to this business without regret; it is better for him and for us.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "stupidity", "slug": "stupidity", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/stupidity" }, { "name": "food", "slug": "food", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/food" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_II", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:16" }, { "id": "e128a050-d429-4d14-bcf2-787868b4245a", "slug": "nature-never-deceives", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/emile-or-on-education/nature-never-deceives", "text": "Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "nature", "slug": "nature", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/nature" }, { "name": "lies", "slug": "lies", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/lies" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emile,_or_On_Education#Book_III", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-26T07:49:16" } ] }