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Visions are a feeble resource, you will say, against great adversity! Oh Sir, these visions may possibly have more reality than all those apparent goods about which men make so much ado, for they never bring a true feeling of happiness to the soul, and those who possess them are equally forced to project themselves into the future for want of finding enjoyments that satisfy them, in the present.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques (1782)

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More quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it means one always has some battle to wage against oneself.

Every blue-stocking will remain a spinster as long as there are sensible men on the earth.

Money is the source of all the false ideas of society.

A blue-stocking is the scourge of her husband, children, friends, servants, and every one.

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