Rousseau et le bon mot

"At sixteen, the adolescent knows about suffering because he himself has suffered, but he barely know that other being also suffer; seeing without feeling is not knowledge."

"However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once."

"I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described."

"Living is not breathing but doing."

"Little privations are easily endured when the heart is better treated than the body."

"To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know."

I am beginning to believe that psychology proceeds philosophy. Rousseau had an insecure life, his mother died within days of his birth and his father later gave him up. He shuffled through various living situations until he was in essencance an adult. He was bright and adept at whatever he attempted, but I get the feeling he was a difficult guy to like. For instance he had 5 kids with his lower class common law wife and he gave them all up to foundling societies. He said it was because he would have been a bad father, odd for a guy who wrote "Emile" which was about the proper education of a child. Was he unhappy with the world and society around him because he was unhappy in his personal life? It's impossible to know without knowing the man or at least becoming more familiar with his work than I ever will be. Nietchze's last book was a scream at society. A society that had hardly acknowledged his greatness. Could be why he adsorbed referred to himself as the greatest.