Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action.

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral — immoral from the scientific point of view." "Why?" "Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul."

I cannot give up my will - I must exercise it, putting it into action.

Truly free people do not need to be told they are free.

You may fetter my leg, but Zeus himself cannot get the better of my free will.

I do not believe there ever was a man who was his own master, but that every man has a master of some kind or other.

The last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment.

No one can think a thought for me in the way that no one can don my hat for me.

We become slaves the moment we hand the keys to the definition of reality entirely over to someone else, whether it is a business, an economic theory, a political party, the White House, Newsworld or CNN.

Actions themselves form no bondage. Bondage is only the false belief,"I am the do-er."

You are a slow learner, Winston." "How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four." "Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.

The fallacy is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside

You are always free to choose what you do first, what you do second, and what you do not do at all

Good things might happen in your life or bad things might happen, sometimes terrible things, but no matter what happens, your soul is your own. And no one and nothing can stop you.

Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.

Free agency is a gift of God....The world does not comprehend the significance of that divine gift to the individual. It is as inherent as intelligence which, we are told, has never been nor can be created

There is no such thing as a good influence. Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtures are not real to him. His sins, if there are such thing as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of someone else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him.

A man often imagines that he acts, when he is acted upon.

Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.

It wasn't so bad being a slave when your owner was yourself and stood up for you.

Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom.

What we refer to as yoga is just a technology to make your energies function by choice, not by compulsion.

To me, freedom means having the power, the inherent right, the capacity and the ability to make choices that honour who I am.

Health, power, riches, possessions and honor can be snatched from you, but your will is irrevocably your own.