Nayra

“With the poet, it is gold and silver, but with the philosopher it is iron and corn, which have civilized men, and ruined mankind.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind

“I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence. Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don't recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad. Life was like that, that's all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“It was requisite for men to be thought what they really were not. To be and to appear became two very different things, and from this distinction sprang pomp and knavery, and all the vices which form their train.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind

“The oftener the choice fell upon old men, the oftener it became necessary to repeat it, and the more the trouble of such repetitions became sensible; electioneering took place; factions arose; the parties contracted ill blood; civil wars blazed forth; the lives of the citizens were sacrificed to the pretended happiness of the state; and things at last came to such a pass, as to be ready to relapse into their primitive confusion”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind