Quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Little adapted to reasoning, crowds, on the contrary, are quick to act. As the result of their present organisation their strength has become immense. The dogmas whose birth we are witnessing will soon have the force of the old dogmas; that is to say, the tyrannical and sovereign force of being above discussion. The divine right of the masses is about to replace the divine right of kings.

Two fundamental factors are at the base of this transformation. The first is the destruction of those religious, political, and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilisation are rooted. The second is the creation of entirely new conditions of existence and thought as the result of modern scientific and industrial discoveries.

He who wills the end, wills the means also, and the means must involve some risks, and even some losses.

Men are wicked, yes, but man is good.

L'indépendance que je croyais avoir acquise était le seul sentiment qui m'affectait. Libre et maître de moi-même, je croyais pouvoir tout faire, atteindre à tout : je n'avais qu'à m'élancer pour m'élever et voler dans les airs.

History tells us, that from the moment when the moral forces on which a civilisation rested have lost their strength, its final dissolution is brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably enough, as barbarians.

Crowds are only powerful for destruction. Their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase.

This collection of scattered thoughts and observations has little order or continuity; it was begun to give pleasure to a good mother who thinks for herself.

El que tales distinciones se hallen o no en los libros, no quita que se hagan en el corazón de todo hombre de buena fe consigo mismo, que no quiere permitir nada que su conciencia pueda reprocharle.

Abandoned to themselves, they soon weary of disorder, and instinctively turn to servitude. It was the proudest and most untractable of the Jacobins who acclaimed Bonaparte with greatest energy when he suppressed all liberty and made his hand of iron severely felt. It

Since everything that comes into the human mind enters through the gates of sense, man's first reason is a reason of sense-experience. It is this that serves as a foundation for the reason of the intelligence; our first teachers in natural philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. To substitute books for them does not teach us to reason, it teaches us to use the reason of others rather than our own; it teaches us to believe much and know little.

The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics.

An isolated individual knows well enough that alone he cannot set fire to a palace or loot a shop, and should he be tempted to do so, he will easily resist the temptation. Making part of a crowd, he is conscious of the power given him by number, and it is sufficient to suggest to him ideas of murder or pillage for him to yield immediately to temptation.

Nie to najci??ej wyzna?, co w nas jest zbrodnicze, ale co wstydliwe i ?mieszne

Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by kindness, which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never been bestowed on easy-going masters, but on tyrants who vigorously oppressed them.

Civilised man is born and dies a slave. The infant is bound up in swaddling clothes, the corpse is nailed down in his coffin. All his life long man is imprisoned by our institutions.

He was freer and less constrained in the womb; he has gained nothing by birth.

Romans had been content to practice virtue; all was lost when they began to study it.

My meditations and reveries are never more delightful than when I forget myself. I feel ecstasies and inexpressible delight when I melt, so to speak, into the system of beings and identify myself with the whole of nature.

People seek a tutor who has already educated one pupil. This is too much; one man can only educate one pupil; if two were essential to success, what right would he have to undertake the first?

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

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

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

Whatever may be our natural talents, the art of writing is not acquired all at once.