Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A born king is a very rare being.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Posterity is always just.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One may live tranquilly in a dungeon; but does life consist in living quietly?

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“We all know that we have to put up with a bad government when it is bad; the problem is to find…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from…

— 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…

— 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,…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every free action has two causes that come together to produce it. One is moral, the will that determines the act; the…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is not our criminal actions that require courage to confess, but those which are ridiculous and foolish.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Since men cannot create new forces, but merely combine and control those which already exist, the only way in which they can…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Even the soberest judged it requisite to sacrifice one part of their liberty to ensure the other, as a man, dangerously wounded…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“He who pretends to look on death without fear lies. All men are afraid of dying, this is the great law of…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted,…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“My illusions about the world caused me to think that in order to benefit by my reading I ought to possess all…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Political writers argue in regard to the love of liberty with the same philosophy that philosophers do in regard to the state…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“O man, whatever country you may belong to, whatever your opinions may be, attend to my words; you shall hear your history…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is believed that physiognomy is only a simple development of the features already marked out by nature. It is my opinion,…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“The extreme inequality of our ways of life, the excess of idleness among some and the excess of toil among others, the…

— 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…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Leave exceptional cases to…

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

General and abstract ideas are the source of the greatest errors of mankind.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One must choose between making a man or a citizen, for one cannot make both at the same time.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau