Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes & Sayings

It is difficult for an education in which the heart is involved to remain forever lost. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I don't know how this lively and dumb scene would have ended , or how long I might have remained immoveable in this ridiculous and delightful situation , had we not been interrupted. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We do not know what really good or bad fortune is. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I love idleness. I love to busy myself about trifles, to begin a hundred things and not finish one of them, to come and go as my fancy bids me, to change my plan every moment, to follow a fly in all its circlings, to try and uproot a rock to see what is underneath, eagerly to begin a ten-years' task to give it up after ten minutes: in short, to fritter away the whole day inconsequentially and incoherently, and to follow nothing but the whim of the moment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

An honest man nearly always thinks justly. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

At first we will only skim the surface of the earth like young starlings, but soon, emboldened by practice and experience, we will spring into the air with the impetuousness of the eagle, diverting ourselves by watching the childish behavior of the little men or awling miserably around on the earth below us. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is always a poor way of reading the hearts of others to try to conceal our own.
[Fr., C'est toujours un mauvais moyen de lire dans le coeur des autres que d'affecter de cacher le sien.] — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus Christ died like a God. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Singing and dancing alone will not advance one in the world.
[Fr., Qui bien chante et bien danse fait un metier qui peu avance.] — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ah,' thought the king sadly, shrugging his shoulders, "I see clearly that if one has a crazy wife, one cannot avoid being a fool.'
("Queen Fantasque") — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up! — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Happiness is a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When one has suffered or fears suffering, one pities those who suffer; but when one is suffering, one pities only oneself. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The truths of the Scriptures are so marked and inimitable, that the inventor would be more of a miraculous character than the hero. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist. It is against natural order that the great number should govern and that the few should be governed. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One advantage resulting from good actions is that they elevate the soul to a disposition of attempting still better; for such is human weakness, that we must place among our good deeds an abstinence from those crimes we are tempted to commit. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To be driven by our appetites alone is slavery, while to obey a law that we have imposed on ourselves is freedom. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ancient politicians talked incessantly about morality and virtue; our politicians talk only about business and money. One will tell you that in a particular country a man is worth the sum he could be sold for in Algiers; another, by following this calculation, will find countries where a man is worth nothing, and others where he is worth less than nothing. They assess men like herds of livestock. According to them, a man has no value to the State apart from what he consumes in it. Thus one Sybarite would have been worth at least thirty Lacedaemonians. Would someone therefore hazard a guess which of these two republics, Sparta or Sybaris, was overthrown by a handful of peasants and which one made Asia tremble? — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are able, and the combination of divine and human laws is hardly enough to stop this disorder. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Childhood is the sleep of reason. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Love childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace? — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The worst education is to leave him floating between his will and yours, and to dispute endlessly between you and him as to which of the two will be the master. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Freedom is the power to choose our own chains — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A child who passes through many hands in turn, can never be well brought up. At every change he makes a secret comparison, which continually tends to lessen his respect for those who control him, and with it their authority over him. If once he thinks there are grown-up people with no more sense than children the authority of age is destroyed and his education is ruined. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The extreme inequalities in the manner of living of the several classes of mankind, the excess of idleness in some, and of labour in others, the facility of irritating and satisfying our sensuality and our appetites, the too exquisite and out of the way aliments of the rich, which fill them with fiery juices, and bring on indigestions, the unwholesome food of the poor, of which even, bad as it is, they very often fall short, and the want of which tempts them, every opportunity that offers, to eat greedily and overload their stomachs; watchings, excesses of every kind, immoderate transports of all the passions, fatigues, waste of spirits, in a word, the numberless pains and anxieties annexed to every condition, and which the mind of man is constantly a prey to; these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided them all by adhering to the simple, uniform and solitary way of life prescribed to us by nature. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When innocent and
virtuous men liked to have gods as witnesses of their actions,
they lived with them in the same huts. But having soon become
evil, they grew weary of these inconvenient spectators and
relegated them to magnificent temples. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Sacrifice life to truth. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We do not know either unalloyed happiness or unmitigated misfortune. Everything in this world is a tangled yarn; we taste nothing in its purity; we do not remain two moments in the same state. Our affections as well as bodies, are in a perpetual flux. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observation than by reading. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[T]he man who meditates is a depraved animal. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The more I study the works of men in their institutions, the more clearly I see that, in their efforts after independence, they become slaves, and that their very freedom is wasted in vain attempts to assure its continuance. That they may not be carried away by the flood of things, they form all sorts of attachments; then as soon as they wish to move forward they are surprised to find that everything drags them back. It seems to me that to set oneself free we need do nothing, we need only continue to desire freedom. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I hate books, for they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Finance is a slave's word. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Innocence is ashamed of nothing. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us al, and that the earth itself belongs to nobody — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[When under stress I thought of] the books I had read [and applied] them to myself. I [imagined I was] one of the characters [and soon found myself] in made-up circumstances which were most agreeable to my inclinations. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I have somewhere read of a wise bishop who in a visit to his diocese found an old woman whose only prayer consisted in the single interjection "Oh!-
"Good mother" said he to her, "continue to pray in this manner; your prayer is better than ours." This better prayer is mine also. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Happiness requires three things, a good bank account, a good cook, and good digestion. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If he who has control of men ought not to control the laws, then he who controls the laws ought not control men: otherwise his laws would minister to his passions.. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Christ preaches only servitude and dependence ... True Christians are made to be slaves. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Now it is easy to perceive that the moral part of love is a factitious sentiment, engendered by society, and cried up by the women with great care and address in order to establish their empire, and secure command to that sex which ought to obey. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

My birth was my first misfortune. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One can buy anything with money except morality. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Social man lives always outside himself; he knows how to live only in the opinion of others, it is, so to speak, from their judgement alone that he derives the sense of his own existence. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care that of preserving it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Happy am I, for every time I meditate on governments, I always find new reasons in my inquiries for loving my own country. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

My liveliest delight was in having conquered myself. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of being, in identifying myself with the whole of nature.. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Chemistry ... is like the maid occupied with daily civilisation; she is busy with fertilisers, medicines, glass, insecticides ... for she dispenses the recipes. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Since nothing is less stable among men than those external relationships which chance brings about more often than wisdom, and which are called weakness or power, wealth or poverty, human establishments appear at first glance to be based on piles of shifting sand. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us! — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. This species of inequality consists in the different privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as that of being richer, more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience from them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Definitions would be good things if we did not use words to make them. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Those who read this will not fail to laugh at my gallantries, and remark, that after very promising preliminaries, my most forward adventures concluded by a kiss of the hand: yet be not mistaken, reader, in your estimate of my enjoyments; I have, perhaps, tasted more real pleasure in my amours, which concluded by a kiss of the hand, than you will ever have in yours, which, at least, begin there. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought is so much time lost in learning to think for ourselves, we have more acquired knowledge and less vigor of mind. Our minds like our arms are accustomed to use tools for everything, and to do nothing for themselves. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There is no evildoer who could not be made good for something. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I am beginning to feel the drunkenness that this agitated, tumultuous life plunges you into. With such a multitude of objects passing before my eyes, I'm getting dizzy. Of all the things that strike me, there is none that holds my heart, yet all of them together disturb my feelings, so that I forget what I am and who I belong to. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I think it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe can last much longer. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I will say little of the importance of a good education; nor will I stop to prove that the current one is bad. Countless others have done so before me, and I do not like to fill a book with things everybody knows. I will note that for the longest time there has been nothing but a cry against the established practice without anyone taking it upon himself to propose a better one. The literature and the learning of our age tend much more to destruction than to edification. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The world is woman's book. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I say to myself: Who are you to measure infinite power? — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau