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Freedom Quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

41 Freedom quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

All Freedom quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s page

Jean‑Jacques Rousseau writes that freedom is not the ability to do anything you want, but the right not to be forced by others. He says liberty lives inside each person’s heart, not in any government. He warns that thinking you are free only during elections is a mistake.

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Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The money you have gives you freedom; the money you pursue enslaves you.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered." (Bk2:8)”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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

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Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“To live free and to have little to do with human affairs is the best way of learning how to die.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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

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“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

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament;…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“The former breathes only peace and liberty; he desires only to live and be free from labor; even the ataraxia of the…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For he who…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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My bad head cannot adjust itself to the way things are… If I want to depict spring, it has to be in…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Let us unite them together in one supreme power which shall govern us all according to wise laws, protect us and defend…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“I have never believed that man’s freedom consists in doing what he wants, but rather in never doing what he does not…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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It is to law alone that men owe justice and liberty. It is this salutary organ, of the will of all which…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“The more I study the works of men in their institutions, the more clearly I see that, in their efforts after independence,…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“I know that [civilized men] do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains… But when…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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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

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“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

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Christ preaches only servitude and dependence... True Christians are made to be slaves.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Freedom is the power to choose our own chains

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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I have never believed that man's freedom consisted in doing what he wants, but rather in never doing what he does not…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“Die Freiheit des Menschen liegt nicht darin, dass er tun kann, was er will, sondern dass er nicht tun muss, was er…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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“[T]he mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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More by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given to us by education.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“O Fabricius! What would your great soul have thought, if to your own misfortune you had been called back to life and had seen…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“The sword wears out its sheath, as it is sometimes said. That is my story. My passions have made me live, and my passions…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Whence do I get my rules of conduct? I find them in my heart. Whatever I feel to be good is good. Whatever I…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“If one divided all of human science into two parts - the one common to all men, the other particular to the learned -…

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…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I do not know is a phrase which becomes us.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“How could I become wicked, when I had nothing but examples of gentleness before my eyes, and none around me but the best people…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau