Rousseau

I have always found singular pleasure in taming animals, especially such as are shy and wild. It appeared to me delightful to inspire them with a confidence which I have never abused. I desired their fondness for me to be perfectly unrestricted.

I had come to see that everything was radically connected with politics, and that, however one proceeded, no people would be other than the nature of its government made it; thus this great question of the best government possible appeared to me to reduce itself to the following: What kind of government is best adapted to produce the most virtuous, the most enlightened, the wisest, and, in short, the best people, taking the word ‘best’ in its widest signification? I thought that I perceived that this question was very closely connected with another, very nearly, although not quite the same. What is the government which, from its nature, always keeps closest to the law? This leads to the question, What is the law? and to a series of questions equally important. I saw that all this led me on to great truths conducive to the happiness of the human race, above all, to that of my country, in which I had not found, in the journey I had ust made thither, sufficiently clear or correct notions of liberty and the laws to satisfy me; and I believed that this indirect method of communicating them was the best suited to spare the pride of those whom it concerned, and to secure my own forgiveness for having been able to see a little further than themselves. Although I had been already engaged five or six years upon this work, it was still in a very backward state. Books of this kind require meditation, leisure, and tranquillity. Besides, I worked at it, as the saying is, en bonne fortune, without communicating my intention to anyone, not even to Diderot. I was afraid that it might appear too foolhardy, considering the age and country in which I wrote, and that the alarm of my friends would embarrass me in its execution.

The colouring of the maps of our geometricians had also given me a taste for drawing. I bought some colours, and began to paint flowers and landscapes. It was a pity that I found I possessed but little talent for this art, for I was entirely devoted to it. I could have spent whole months in the midst of my crayons and pencils without going out. As this occupation occupied too much of my attention, they were compelled to drag me away from it. It is always the same with all the pursuits to which I begin to devote myself; they grow upon me, become a passion, and soon I see nothing else in the world but my favourite amusement. Age has not cured me of this fault, it has not even diminished it; even while I write this, I sit like an old twaddler, infatuated with another study, which is useless to me and of which I understand nothing, which even those who have devoted themselves to it during their youth, are obliged to give up at the age when I want to begin it.

I did not find that my critical faculties had lost their vigour owing to my having begun to exercise them late; and, when I published my own ideas, I have never been accused of being a servile disciple, or of swearing in verba magistri.

So true it is that, in every condition of life, the strong man who is guilty saves himself at the expense of the innocent who is weak.

I believe that my friends would have forgiven me for writing books – even excellent books – because such a reputation was attainable by themselves; but they were unable to forgive me for having composed an opera, or for its brilliant success, because not one of them was capable of following the same career, or aspiring to the same honour.

I knew that my talent consisted entirely in a certain lively interest in the subjects which I had to treat, and that nothing but the love of the great, the true, and the beautiful, could enliven my genius.

He divided and settled in advance the occupations of his day, by hours, quarters, and minutes, and he adhered so scrupulously to this arrangement, that, if the hour had struck while he was in the middle of a sentence, he would have shut the book without finishing it. Each of these portions of time, thus broken up, was set apart for a different occupation; reflection, conversation, divine service, Locke, telling his beads, visiting, music, painting; no pleasure, temptation, or desire to oblige, was permitted to interrupt this arrangement; only a duty to be fulfilled could have done so. When he gave me the list of his distribution of time, in order that I might follow it, I began by laughing, and ended with tears of admiration.

I worship freedom; I abhor restraint, trouble, dependence. As long as the money in my purse lasts, it assures my independence; it relieves me of the trouble of finding expedients to replenish it, a necessity which always inspired me with dread; but the fear of seeing it exhausted makes me hoard it carefully. The money which a man possesses is the instrument of freedom; that which we eagerly pursue is the instrument of slavery. Therefore I hold fast to that which I have, and desire nothing.

The first, the greatest, the most powerful, the most irrepressible of all my needs was entirely in my heart; it was the need of a companionship as intimate as was possible; it was for that purpose especially that I needed a woman rather than a man, a female rather than a male friend.

I certainly cannot have been born for study, for continuous application tires me to such an extent, that I am utterly unable to devote more than half an hour together to the close study of the same subject, especially when following another’s train of thought; for it has sometimes happened that I have been able to devote myself to my own ideas longer, and even with tolerable success. When I have read a few pages of an author who must be read carefully, my mind wanders from him, and is lost in the clouds. If I persist, I exhaust myself to no purpose; I become dazed, and cease to see anything. But if different subjects follow each other, even without interruption, one relieves me from the other, and, without feeling the need of any relaxation, I follow them more easily. I profited by this observation in my plan of study, and I combined them in such a manner that I was busy the whole day without ever fatiguing myself.

My views were even more hostile to their principles and influence than the unbelief of my colleagues, since atheistic and religious fanaticism, which approach closely in their common intolerance, are even capable of uniting, as they have done in China, and as they do now against myself; whereas rational and moral religion, which takes away all human control over the conscience, deprives of further resource those who claim that power.