As there are men who never get beyond infancy, so there are others who are never, so to speak, children, they are men almost from birth.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education (1762). copy citation

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Author Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Source Emile, or On Education
Topic birth
Date 1762
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Barbara Foxley
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5427/pg5427-images.html

Context

“So this solitary education would be preferable, even if it did nothing more than leave childhood time to ripen. There is quite another class of exceptions: those so gifted by nature that they rise above the level of their age. As there are men who never get beyond infancy, so there are others who are never, so to speak, children, they are men almost from birth. The difficulty is that these cases are very rare, very difficult to distinguish; while every mother, who knows that a child may be a prodigy, is convinced that her child is that one. They go further;” source