French philosopher Quote by Jared Diamond

“The real social contract, (Edmund Burke) argued, was not Rousseau's social contract between the noble savage and the General Will, but a "partnership" between…

— Niall Ferguson

The theory of social contracts extends as far back as Plato. However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes,…

— Simon Mainwaring

However, it was the great 18th century social philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who brought the concept of a social contract…

— Simon Mainwaring

“There are two ways to make people richer, reasoned Rousseau: to give them more money or to restrain their desires.”

— Alain de Botton

“Contra Hobbes and Locke, Rousseau refused to believe that the obligations to civil society could be derived from self-interest, the preservation of life or…

— Pankaj Mishra

“When a nation was faced with a choice between abstract principle or complete self-interest, it took self-interest every time.”

— Jack L. Chalker

“Meanwhile, two other great currents in political thought, had a decisive significance on the development of socialist ideas: Liberalism, which had powerfully stimulated advanced…

— Rudolf Rocker

“Virtue is the product of good government. ‘Vices belong less to man, than to man badly governed.’ The political process, and the new kind…

— Paul Johnson

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

— Colin Wilson

“What’s crucial about Rousseau, and many of his ideological successors, is that politics was always personal for him, unlike those whom Tocqueville faulted for…

— Pankaj Mishra

“The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving…

— Gustav Landauer

“A hugely complicated, centrally planned, social and economic system can only be kept on the rails for as long as people believe in it.”

— Paul Kriwaczek