Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

The man is best served who has no occasion to put the hands of others at the end of his own arms.

Generally we obtain very surely and very speedily what we are not too anxious to obtain.

There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something.

Conscience is the voice of the soul, the passions are the voice of the body. Is it astonishing that often these two languages contradict each other, and then to which must we listen? Too often reason deceives us; we have only too much acquired the right of refusing to listen to it; but conscience never deceives us; it is the true guide of man; it is to man what instinct is to the body; which follows it, obeys nature, and never is afraid of going astray.

She was dull, unattractive, couldn't tell the time, count money or tie her own shoe laces... But I loved her

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

There is a period in life when we go backwards as we advance.

The truth brings no man a fortune.

It is easier to conquer than to administer. With enough leverage, a finger could overturn the world; but to support the world, one must have the shoulders of Hercules.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.

We cannot teach children the danger of telling lies to men without realising, on the man's part, the danger of telling lies to children. A single untruth on the part of the master will destroy the results of his education.

There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence differs in degrees; man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and also through her needs; he could do without her better than she can do without him. She cannot fulfill her purpose in life without his aid, without his goodwill, without his respect.....Nature herself has decreed that woman, both for herself and her children, should be at the mercy of man s judgment.

Equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera, which can never be reduced to practice. But if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not to try at least to mitigate it? It is precisely because the force of things tends always to destroy equality that the force of the legislature must always tend to maintain it.

All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.

The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

For, as I think I have said, I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

Cities are the abyss of the human species.

In the North the first words are, Help me; in the South, Love me.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.

Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.

He who blushes is already guilty.

Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in experiments and to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use those senses...The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those which nature has provided every one of us.

It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires.

[When anything happens, we interpret it as good or bad, but...] We do not know what is really good or bad fortune. [Only the future can decide. For example, what appears to be bad today may in fact lead us to a greater good tomorrow and by the very act of thinking and planning in that positive way, we can help make that good future come true.]

Men will argue more philosophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they.

Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.

In all the ills that befall us, we are more concerned by the intention than the result. A tile that falls off a roof may injure us more seriously, but it will not wound us so deeply as a stone thrown deliberately by a malevolent hand. The blow may miss, but the intention always strikes home.

The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.

The general will is always right.

It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.

If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable to men.

Girls must be thwarted early in life.

Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.

Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.

And when the relics of humanity left among the Spaniards induced them to forbid their lawyers to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence? May it not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all the outrages they had committed against the unhappy Indians?

Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame.

Every artists wants to be applauded

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived.

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people.

Freedom is the power to choose our own chains