Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.
Meaning of the quote
Most countries and people are only impossible when they are young. But as they get older, they become much harder to change or improve.
More quotes from Jean Jacques Rousseau
Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.
Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.
We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education.
Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.
When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.
Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.
Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.
Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.
Childhood is the sleep of reason.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.
Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.
We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?
Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.
Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.
The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.
It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.
I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
Force does not constitute right… obedience is due only to legitimate powers.
Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.
A feeble body weakens the mind.
Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.
The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.
The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.