Quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

Born as I was the citizen of a free state and a member of its sovereign body, the very right to vote imposes on me the duty to instruct myself in public affairs, however little influence my voice may have in them.

Si queremos formar una institución duradera, no pensemos en hacerla eterna

Suffer, die, or get better; but whatever you do, live while you are alive.

Even the soberest judged it requisite to sacrifice one part of their liberty to ensure the other, as a man, dangerously wounded in any of his limbs, readily parts with it to save the rest of his body.

The wise man observes the public disorder he cannot prevent; he observes it, and reveals by his sad countenance the grief it causes him; but as for individual disorders, he opposes them or averts his eyes, lest his presence be taken for approval.

How many centuries must have elapsed before men reached the point of seeing any other fire than that in the sky?

How much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato, that the perfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying their prince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being equitable and always directed to the good of the public?

Man's first language, the most universal, the most energetic and the only language he needed before it was necessary to persuade men assembled together, is the cry of nature.

Hasta entonces me había hablado de mí solo, como a un niño; desde aquel momento empezó a tratarme como a un hombre, y me habló de sí misma. Me

Even if philosophers were in a position to discover truth, who among them would be interested in it? Each knows well that his system is not better founded than the others; but he supports it because it is his.

It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason.

aunque nazca uno con algún talento, el arte de escribir no se aprende repentinamente. Remití

He who wills the end wills the means also

La vida ambulante es la que mejor me conviene. Ir de camino con buen tiempo, por un país hermoso, sin llevar prisa, y tener un objeto agradable por término del viaje, he ahí, de todos los modos de vivir, el que más me agrada.

So much good my persecutors have done me by recklessly pouring out all the shafts of their hatred. They have deprived themselves of any power over me and henceforward I can laugh at them. It

Doubt with regard to what we ought to know is a condition too violent for the human mind; it cannot long be endured; in spite of itself the mind decides one way or another, and it prefers to be deceived rather than to believe nothing.

L'adversité sans doute est un grand maître, mais il fait payer cher ses leçons, et souvent le profit qu'on en retire ne vaut pas le prix qu'elles ont coûté.

The worst education is to leave him floating between his will and yours, and to dispute endlessly between you and him as to which of the two will be the master.

The indolence I love is not that of a lazy fellow who sits with his arms across in total inaction, and thinks no more than he acts,... ...but that of a child which is incessantly in motion doing nothing, and that of a dotard who wanders from his subject.

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all act under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular and powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical and pressing occasion; that it, till it is too late; for it is on those very occasion that such knowledge is of use to us.

le luxe est l'effet des richesses, ou il les rend nécessaires; il corrompt à la fois le riche et le pauvre, l'un par la possession, l'autre par la convoitise; il vend la patrie à la mollesse, à la vanité; il ôte à l'Etat tous ses citoyens pour les asservir les uns aux autres, et tous à l'opinion.

the Despot is Master only as long as he is the strongest, and as soon as he can be driven out he cannot protest against violence. The uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a Sultan is as Lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and goods of his Subjects.

All our wisdom consists in servile prejudices. All our practices are only subjection, impediment, and constraint. Civil man is born, lives, and dies in slavery. At his birth he is sewed in swaddling clothes; at his death he is nailed in a coffin. So long as he keeps his human shape, he is enchained by our institutions.