You are here: Home > Literature > Jean Jacques Rousseau
Quotes of Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a Genevan philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. Rousseau also made important contributions to music both as a theorist and as a composer. With his Confessions and other writings, he practically invented modern autobiography and encouraged a new focus on the building of subjectivity that would bear fruit in the work of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Freud. His novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse was one of the best-selling fictional works of the eighteenth century and was important to the development of romanticism.
- A feeble body weakens the mind.
- Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.
- All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
- Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
- Base souls have no faith in great individuals.
- Childhood is the sleep of reason.
- Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.
- Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.
- Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.
- Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.
- Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
- Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
- Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.
- How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?
- However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
- I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.
- I have always said and felt that true enjoyment can not be described.
- It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
- It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
- Man is born free, and everywhere he is in shackles.
- Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.
- Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.
- Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.
- Our affections as well as our bodies are in perpetual flux.
- Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.
- Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.
- Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
- People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
- Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.
- Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.
- Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.
- Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.
- Take the course opposite to custom and you will almost always do well.
- The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.
- The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
- The English think they are free. They are free only during the election of members of parliament.
- The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.
- The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
- The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
- The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
- Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.
- To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
- We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.
- We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.
- We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
- We should not teach children the sciences; but give them a taste for them.
- When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.
- You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.