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
The person who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Integrity
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody”.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Property
Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Nationalism, Nations, Nation, Nationality
Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Marriage
Physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Evils
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
I may not be better than other people, but at least I’m different.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Identity
It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which establishes in civil rights the natural equality between men. It is this celestial voice which dictates to each citizen the precepts of public reason, and teaches him to act according to the rules of his own judgment and not to behave inconsistently with himself. It is with this voice alone that political leaders should speak when. they command.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Equality
Do not judge, and you will never be mistaken.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Judgment, Justice, Judging, Judges
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
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
To write a good love letter you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Ignorance, Abundance
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Patience
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.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Dress
Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Laughter, Law
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: Elections, Voting, Freedom
The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Mind
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?”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cities are the abyss of the human species.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All that time is lost which might be better employed.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Time Management, Value of Time, Time
A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Freedom, Liberty
The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to lose time in order to gain it.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Children
To live is not breathing it is action.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I may not amount to much, but at least I am unique.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Blessings, Gratitude, Appreciation
There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Change
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.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Fame
We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Sympathy
A feeble body weakens the mind.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Health, Body, The Body
Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Topics: Risk
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Henri Frederic Amiel Swiss Philosopher, Writer
Voltaire French Philosopher, Author
Carl Gustav Jung Swiss Psychologist
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi Swiss Educator
Denis Diderot French Philosopher, Writer
Jean-luc Godard French-born Swiss Film Director
Hermann Hesse Swiss Novelist, Poet
Simone de Beauvoir French Philosopher
Karl Barth Swiss Protestant Theologian
Immanuel Kant Prussian German Philosopher