Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) was a Swiss-born French philosopher, author, political theorist, and composer. In many respects an original and contentious thinker, Rousseau’s significant works raised deep-seated questions in the fields of ethics, education, politics, and aesthetics. He ranks as one of the greatest intellectuals of the French Enlightenment and the Romantic generation.

Rousseau’s original thinking was that humans are by nature good, but are soiled by society. He endorsed a humanistic and progressive educational system that would develop the natural interests and potential of the child.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Rousseau had no formal education. In 1741, he moved to Paris to make a living from clerical work and music-copying. He became acquainted with Voltaire and Denis Diderot and contributed articles on music and political economy to the Encyclopédie.

In the 1750s, Rousseau came to fame with his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1754) and other essays that were highly critical of the existing social order. He expressed his belief in the fundamental goodness of human nature, summarized in the concept of the “noble savage,” and the warping effects of civilization.

In 1762, Rousseau published his masterpiece, Du contrat social (A Treatise on the Social Contract, 1764,) which anticipated much of the thinking of the French Revolution. Social Contract argues for a version of the sovereignty of the whole citizen body over itself, expressing its legislative intent through the general will. One of Rousseau’s most notable axioms, “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains,” comes from the Social Contract and has been a rallying-cry for rebels and reformers ever since.

In his novel Émile (1762,) Rousseau formulated new educational philosophies giving the child full scope for individual development in natural surroundings, protected from the corrupting influences of civilization.

Rousseau is also noted for his Les Confessions (1782–89; Confessions, 1783–91,) one of the earliest autobiographies. In 1794, his remains were placed alongside those of Voltaire in Paris’s Pantheon.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous: it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Self-love

Great men never make bad use of their superiority; they see it, and feel it, and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Greatness

If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically; so perfect a government is not suitable to men.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Democracy

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

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Men, Youth

There is a deportment which suits the figure and talents of each person; it is always lost when we quit it to assume that of another.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Manners

As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Wealth

A feeble body weakens the mind.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: The Body, Health, Body

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Truth

Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Government

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Modesty, Humility

Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Appetite, Labor, Medicine, Virtues, Virtue, Doctors

Whence do I get my rules of conduct? I find them in my heart. Whatever I feel to be good is good. Whatever I feel to be evil is evil. Conscience is the best of casuists.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Conscience

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.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Voting, Freedom, Elections

The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Integrity

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Virtue, Virtues

Whoever blushes, is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Kings wish to be absolute, and they are sometimes told that their best way to become so is to make themselves beloved by the people. This maxim is doubtless a very admirable one, and in some respects true; but unhappily it is laughed at in court.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Kings

Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Laughter, Law

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Desire, Slavery, Miscellaneous

The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Money

Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Freedom

We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Peruse the works of our philosophers; with all their pomp of diction, how mean, how contemptible, are they, compared with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man? The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the Gospel, the marks of whose truths are so striking and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Bible

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Heart

Cities are the abyss of the human species.
—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
Topics: Woman, Book

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.—Not being able to enlarge the one, let us contract the other; for it is from their difference that all the evils arise which render us unhappy.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Imagination, Reality

Childhood is the sleep of reason.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: One liners, Children, Childhood

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *