Quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

War, then, is not a relation between men, but between states; in war individuals are enemies wholly by chance, not as men, not even as citizens, but only as soldiers; not as member of their country, but only as its defenders. In a word, a state can have as an enemy only another state, not men, becuase there can be no real relations between things possessing different intrinsic natures.

Nations, like men, are teachable only in their youth; with age they become incorrigible. Once customs are established and prejudices rooted, reform is a dangerous and fruitless enterprise; a people cannot bear to see its evils touched, even if only to be eradicated.

the despot assures his subjects civil tranquillity.

Résumons en quatre mots le pacte social des deux états. Vous avez besoin de moi, car je suis riche et vous êtes pauvre ; faisons donc un accord entre nous : je permettrai que vous ayez l'honneur de me servir, à condition que vous me donnerez le peu qui vous reste pour la peine que je prendrai de vous commander.

It is a great evil for a Chief of a nation to be born the enemy of the freedom whose defender he should be.

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!

Rien ne rétrécit plus l'esprit, rien n'engendre plus de riens, de rapports, de paquets, de tracasseries, de mensonges, que d'être éternellement renfermés vis-à-vis les uns des autres dans une chambre, réduits pour tout ouvrage à la nécessité de babiller continuellement.

To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.

To be something, to be himself, and always at one with himself, a man must act as he speaks, must know what course he ought to take, and must follow that course with vigour and persistence.

On the other hand, nothing would have been so miserable as savage man, dazzled by enlightenment, tormented by passions, and reasoning about a state different from his own.

The truth brings no man a fortune

Ah,' thought the king sadly, shrugging his shoulders, I see clearly that if one has a crazy wife, one cannot avoid being a fool.' (Queen Fantasque)

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution. The

The good man can be proud of his virtue because it is his. But of what is the intelligent man proud?

Qu'il voie par ses yeux, qu'il sente par son coeur ; qu'aucune autorité ne le gouverne, hors celle de sa propre raison.

J'aperçois Dieu partout dans ses oeuvres ; je le sens en moi, je le vois tout autour de moi ; mais sitôt que je veux le contempler en lui-même, sitôt que je veux chercher où il est, ce qu'il est, quelle est sa substance, il m'échappe et mon esprit troublé n'aperçoit plus rien.

Les gens qui passent exactement la vie entière à travailler pour vivre n'ont d'autre idée que celle de leur travail ou de leur intérêt, et tout leur esprit semble être au bout de leurs bras.

We cannot teach children the danger of lying to men without feeling as men, the greater danger of lying to children.

Dans tout pays qui se dépeuple, l'état tend à sa ruine ; et le pays qui peuple le plus, fût-il le plus pauvre, est infailliblement le mieux gouverné.

For the State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights;

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

But if the abberations of foolish youth made me forget suc wise lessons for a time,I have the happiness to sense at last that whatever the inclination one may have toward vice,it is difficult for an education in which the heart is involved to remain forever lost.

Since nothing is less stable among men than those external relationships which chance brings about more often than wisdom, and which are called weakness or power, wealth or poverty, human establishments appear at first glance to be based on piles of shifting sand.

Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken