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Censorship is crucial for preserving morals but useless for restoring them.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The Social Contract

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique [On the Social Contract or Principles of Political Law]. Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey, 1762, bk. 4, ch. 7.

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. "Of the Social Contract." Of the Social Contract and Other Political Writings, translated by Quintin Hoare. Penguin Classics, 2012, bk. 4, ch. 7.

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Remorse sleeps during a prosperous period but wakes up in adversity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Confessions (Rousseau)

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Les Confessions [The Confessions]. Aux Deux-Ponts: Chez Sanson Et Compagnie, 1782, bk. 2.

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Confessions, translated by Angela Scholar. Oxford University Press, 2008, pt. 1, bk. 2.

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Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Confessions (Rousseau)

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Les Confessions [The Confessions]. Aux Deux-Ponts: Chez Sanson Et Compagnie, 1782, bk. 5.

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Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Confessions, translated by Angela Scholar. Oxford University Press, 2008, pt. 1, bk. 5.

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I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

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De Montaigne, Michel. "Nous ne Goustons Rien de Pur [That We Taste Nothing Pure]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

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De Montaigne, Michel. "We Can Savour Nothing Pure." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

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This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons hitherto brought forward in explanation of this fact has seemed adequate.

Simone de Beauvoir

The Second Sex

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De Beauvoir, Simone. Le Deuxième Sexe [The Second Sex]. Vol. 1, Gallimard, 1949.

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De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Vintage, 2011.

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We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time

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Proust, Marcel. Albertine disparue [Albertine Gone]. Paris: Gallimard, 1927.

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Proust, Marcel. The Fugitive, edited and translated by Peter Collier. Penguin Classics, 2021.

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Speak the truth and shame the Devil.

Francois Rabelais

Gargantua and Pantagruel

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Rabelais, Francois [published as Alcofribas Nasier]. Le cinquiesme et dernier livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel [The Fifth and Last Book of the Heroic Deeds and Sayings of Good Pantagruel]. c. 1564.

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Current Citation

Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua & Pantagruel. Dover Publications, 2016, bk. 5, prologue.

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Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters never desire more of it than they already possess.

René Descartes

Discourse on Method

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Descartes, René [published anonymously]. Discours de la Méthode: Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences [Discourse on Method: To Conduct Reason Well, and Seek Truth in the Sciences]. Leiden, 1637, pt. 1.

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Descartes, René. Discourse on the Method, translated by Ian Maclean. Oxford University Press, 2008, pt. 1.

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France cannot be France without greatness.

Charles de Gaulle

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De Gaulle, Charles. "L'Appel, 1940-1942." Mémoires de Guerre [War Memories]. c. 1954, ch. 1.

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De Gaulle, Charles. The Complete War Memoirs of Charles De Gaulle. Carroll & Graf Pub, 1998, vol. 1, ch. 1.

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I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

Voltaire

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Voltaire. Letter to Etienne Noel Damilaville. 16 May 1767.

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It happens as with the cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

On marriage.

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De Montaigne, Michel. "Sur des Vers de Virgile [Upon Some Verses of Virgil]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

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De Montaigne, Michel. "On Some Lines of Virgil." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

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Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.

Pablo Picasso

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Picasso, Pablo. "Picasso n'est pas officier dans l'armee Francaise." Interviewed by Simon Tery. Les Lettres Francaise, 24 Mar. 1945.

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Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be; in this direction their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure.... Democracy, which shuts the past against the poet, opens the future before him.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

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Tocqueville, Alexis De. De La Democratie en Amerique [Democracy in America]. Vol. 2, London: Saunders and Otley, 1840, sect. 1, ch. 17.

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Current Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II, translated by Henry Reeve. Bantam Classics, 2000, vol. 2, sect. 1, ch. 17.

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Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

Michel de Montaigne

Essays

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De Montaigne, Michel. "Par Divers Moyens On Arrive a Pareille Fin [That Men by Various Means Arrive at the Same End]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.

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Current Citation

De Montaigne, Michel. "We Reach the Same End by Discrepant Means." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.

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It is not rebellion itself that is noble, but its aims, even though its achievements are at times ignoble.

Albert Camus

The Rebel

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Camus, Albert. L'Homme Revolte [The Rebel]. Gallimard, 1951.

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Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves.

Arthur Rimbaud

The Drunken Boat

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Rimbaud, Arthur. "Le Bateau Ivre [The Drunken Boat]." Les Poetes Maudits, edited by Paul Verlaine. Paris, 1884.

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Rimbaud, Arthur. "Le bateau ivre/The Drunken Boat." Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters, a Bilingual Edition, translated by Wallace Fowlie. University of Chicago Press, 2005.

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