Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseauwas a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the overall development of modern political and educational thought...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 June 1712
CityGeneva, Switzerland
CountryFrance
Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes about
mind host concern
It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.
demand sovereign citizens
A citizen should render to the state all the services he can as soon as the sovereign demands them.
identity asking dare
We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.
heart mean passion
Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in the secret heart.
fate ill-will endurance
For it is in our nature to endure patiently the decrees of fate, but not the ill-will of others.
order soul doubt
Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.
money liberty slavery
The money that we possess is the instrument of liberty, that which we lack and strive to obtain is the instrument of slavery.
knowledge phrases knows
I do not know is a phrase which becomes us.
democracies-have democracy existence
In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and never will exist.
luxury riches poor
Luxury either comes of riches or makes them necessary; it corrupts at once rich and poor, the rich by possession and the poor by covetousness.
reputation posterity
Posterity is always just.
kings philosophy thinking
He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.
feet america humanity
And when the relics of humanity left among the Spaniards induced them to forbid their lawyers to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence? May it not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all the outrages they had committed against the unhappy Indians?
technology tools use
Too much apparatus, designed to guide us in experiments and to supplement the exactness of our senses, makes us neglect to use those senses...The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses. We surround ourselves with tools and fail to use those which nature has provided every one of us.