Famous Jean Jacques Rousseau Quotations

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"To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"No man has any natural authority over his fellow men."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Accent is the soul of language it gives to it both feeling and truth."
by 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."
by 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."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Happiness a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"One loses all the time which he might employ to better purpose."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The world of reality has its limits the world of imagination is boundless."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? by Jean-Jacques Rousseau"
by JeanJacques Rousseau
"Your first appearance, he said to me, is the gauge by which you will be measured; try to manage that you may go beyond yourself in after times, but beware of ever doing less."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Your first appearance, he said to me, is the gauge by which you will be measured try to manage that you may go beyond yourself in after times, but beware of ever doing less."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Adversity is a great teacher, but this teacher makes us pay dearly for its instruction; and often the profit we derive, is not worth the price we paid."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Every animal (of the higher species) has ideas, since he has senses. He even combines his ideas up to a certain point, and man differs, in this respect, only in the more or less. Some philosophic writers have even advanced that there is more difference between this man and that man, than between this man and that (non-human) animal. It is not, therefore, intelligence so much as his quality of being a free agent which makes the difference."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"English coarseness is well known. The Gaures, on the contrary, are the gentlest of men. All savages are cruel, and it is not their morals that urge them to be so; this cruelty proceeds from their food. They go to war as to the chase, and treat men as they do bears. Even in England the butchers are not received as legal witnesses any more than surgeons. And great criminals harden themselves to murder by drinking [animal] blood."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"One of the proofs that the taste of flesh is not natural to man is the indifference which children exhibit for that sort of meat, and the preference they all give to vegetable foods, such as milk-porridge, pastry, fruits, etc. It is of the last importance not to de-naturalize them of this primitive taste and not to render them carnivorous, if not for health reasons, at least for the sake of their character. For, however the experience may be explained, it is certain that great eaters of flesh are, in general, more cruel and ferocious than other men. This observation is true of all places and of all times."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The animals you eat are not those who devour others; you do not eat the carnivorous beasts, you take them as your pattern. You only hunger for the sweet and gentle creatures which harm no one, which follow you, serve you, and are devoured by you as the reward of their service."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Childhood is the sleep of reason."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions of the body."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The greatest braggarts are usually the biggest cowards."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche."
by Isadora Duncan
"Temperance and labor are the two real physicians of man."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Our greatest evils flow from ourselves."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"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."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Whoever blushes confesses guilt, true innocence never feels shame."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?"
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"One is only happy before he is happy"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Man was born free, but is everywhere in bondage."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Jean-Jacques Rousseau"
by Anonymous
"It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"If you take a look at the supply-demand fundamentals in the world, there's not a lot of excess supply available or much coming on line."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I feel an indescribable ecstasy and delirium in melting, as it were, into the system of beings, in identifying myself with the whole of nature"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous"
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"God made me and broke the mold."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"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."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"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?"
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"With children use force with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"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."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please."
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
"Do I dare set forth here the most important, the most useful rule of all education? it is not to save time, but to squander it."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we don't know."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Jean Jacques Rousseau ... is nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and a..."
by Stendhal
"Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes th..."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"The general will is always right."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come t..."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"We can never put ourselves in the shoes of children; we cannot fathom their thoughts, we lend them ours; and always following our own reasonin..."
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau


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