Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself

The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.

The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.

The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.

Abstract truth is the eye of reason.

The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.

The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.

To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.

The mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours, for all her levers move the human heart.

Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited.

I say to myself: "Who are you to measure infinite power?

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?

An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced all common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth.

There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, Is it good in itself? In the second, Can it be easily put into practice?

The man who meditates is a depraved animal.

Inopportune consolations increase a deep sorrow.

Education is either from nature, from man or from things. The developing of our faculties and organs is the education of nature; that of man is the application we learn to make of this very developing; and that of things is the experience we acquire in regard to the different objects by which we are affected. All that we have not at our birth, and that we stand in need of at the years of maturity, is the gift of education.

Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

I loved too sincerely, too completely, I venture to say, to be able to be happy easily.

He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.

Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.

We have to have powder for our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.

Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.

Ruthless man: you begin by slaying the animal and then you devour it, as if to slay it twice. It is not enough. You turn against the dead flesh, it revolts you, it must be transformed by fire, boiled and roasted, seasoned and disguised with drugs; you must have butchers, cooks, turnspits, men who will rid the murder of its horrors, who will dress the dead bodies so that the taste decieved by these disguises will not reject what is strange to it, and will feast on corpses, the very sight of which would sicken you.

One can buy anything with money except morality.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

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, at least I am different.

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.

When my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and I believe in God as firmly as in any other truth whatever; in short, a thousand motives draw me to the consolatory side, and add the weight of hope to the equilibrium of reason.

Everything degenerates in the hands of man.

To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.

Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a wise man, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god.

There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth and what really happened.

A man who is not a fool can rid himself of every folly except vanity.

Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.

That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.

The members of a body-politic call it "the state" when it is passive, "the sovereign" when it is active, and a "power" when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title "people," and they refer to one another individually as "citizens" when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as "subjects" when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

By doing good we become good.

Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given to us by education.

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.

It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present artists.

Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.

The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.