"The question before me is: 'Whether the Restoration of the arts and sciences has had the effect of purifying or corrupting morals.'" (Chapter 1, A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences, Part I, 3)

"It is thus the dissolution of morals, the necessary consequence of luxury, brings with it in its turn the corruption of taste." (Chapter 2, A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences, Part II, 19)

"I should have wished to live and die free: that is, so far subject to the laws that neither I, nor anybody else, should be able to cast off their honorable yoke: the easy and salutary yoke which the haughtiest necks bear with the greater docility." (Chapter 3, A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Dedication and Preface, 33)

"What experiments would have to be made, to discover the natural man? And how are those experiments to...