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
goodness
Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.
criminal hardest ridiculous
It is not the criminal things that are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and the shameful.
incentive money
Refiners had every incentive to get back up because there was a lot of money to be made.
evils others ourselves pity
We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced
majority-rule political minorities
It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.
innocence ashamed
Innocence is ashamed of nothing.
misfortunes
Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.
insult-to-injury comeback argument
Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.
laughter teaching heart
Your first duty is to be humane. Love childhood. Look with friendly eyes on its games, its pleasures, its amiable dispositions. Which of you does not sometimes look back regretfully on the age when laughter was ever on the lips and the heart free of care? Why steal from the little innocents the enjoyment of a time that passes all too quickly?
independent passion men
To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.
nature children men
Nature wants children to be children before men... Childhood has its own seeing, thinking and feeling.
pride vanity nationalism
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
innocence guilty ashamed
Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.
mold broke made
God made me and broke the mold.