我现在要做一项既无先例、将来也不会有人仿效的艰巨工作。我要把一个人的真实面目赤裸裸地揭露在世人面前。这个人就是我。
只有我是这样的人。我深知自己的内心，也了解别人。我生来便和我所见到的任何人都不同；甚至于我敢自信全世界也找不到一个生来象我这样的人。虽然我不比别人好，至少和他们不一样。大自然塑造了我，然后把模子打碎了，打碎了模子究竟好不好，只有读了我这本书以后才能评定。
不管末日审判的号角什么时候吹响，我都敢拿着这本书走到至高无上的审判者面前，果敢地大声说：“请看！这就是我所做过的，这就是我所想过的，我当时就是那样的人。不论善和恶，我都同样坦率地写了出来。我既没有隐瞒丝毫坏事，也没有增添任何好事；假如在某些地方作了一些无关紧要的修饰，那也只是用来填补我记性不好而留下的空白。其中可能把自己以为是真的东西当真的说了，但决没有把明知是假的硬说成真的。当时我是什么样的人，我就写成什么样的人：当时我是卑鄙龌龊的，就写我的卑鄙龌龊；当时我是善良忠厚、道德高尚的，就写我的善良忠厚和道德高尚。万能的上帝啊！我的内心完全暴露出来了，和你亲自看到的完全一样，请你把那无数的众生叫到我跟前来！让他们听听我的忏悔，让他们为我的种种堕落而叹息，让他们为我的种种恶行而羞愧。然后，让他们每一个人在您的宝座前面，同样真诚地披露自己的心灵，看看有谁敢于对您说。‘我比这个人好！’”
————-让－雅克·卢梭
I am commencing an untertaking,hitherto without precedent,and which will never find an imitator.I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature,and that man myself.
Myself alone!I konw the feelings of my heart,and I know men.I am not made like any of those I have seen.I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence.If I am not better,al least I am different.Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destorying the mould in which she cast me,can only be decided after I have been read.
Let the trumpet of the Day of Judgement sound when it will,I will present myself before the Sovereign Judge with this book in my hand.I will say boldly:"This is what I have done,what I have thought,what I was.I have told the good and the bad with equal frankness.I have neither omitted anything bad,nor interpolated anything good.If I have occaionally made use of some immaterial embellishments,this has only been in order to fill a gap caused by lack of memory.I may have assumed the truth of that which I knew might have been true, never of that which I knew to be false.I have shown myself as I was:mean and contemptible,good,high-minded and sublime,according as I was one or the other.I have unveiled my inmost self even as Thou hast seen it,O Eternal Being.Gather round me the countless host of my fellow-men;let them hear my confessions,lament for my unworthiness,and blush for my imperfections.Then let each of them in turn reveal,with the same frankness,the secrets of his heart at the foot of the Throne,and say,if he dare,"I was better than that man".
———–Jean-Jacques Rousseau