Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

Quit thy childhood, my friend, and wake up!

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

Women speak at an earlier age, more easily, and more agreeably than men; they are accused also of speaking more; this is as it should be, and I willingly change the reproach into a eulogy.

The French, for example, are a contemptible nation.

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

Smell is the sense of memory and desire.

The most absolute authority is that which penetrates into a man's innermost being and concerns itself no less with his will than with his actions.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

The English people think they are free; they are greatly deceived; they are free only during the election of members of Parliament.

We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.

The truth brings no man a fortune.

All that time is lost which might be better employed.

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.

Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.

The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.

Supreme happiness consists in self-content.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

It is in man's heart that the life of nature's spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.

Every free action has two causes that come together to produce it. One is moral, the will that determines the act; the other is physical, the power that executes the will to act.

Presence of mind, penetration, fine observation, are the sciences of women; ability to avail themselves of these is their talent.

Cities are the abyss of the human species.

It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.

To make a man richer, give him more money of curb his desires.

Childhood is the sleep of reason.

Self-love is an instrument useful but dangerous; it often wounds the hand which makes use of it, and seldom does good without doing harm.

There is a period in life when we go backwards as we advance.

An honest man nearly always thinks justly.

To live is not breathing it is action.

I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.

Every blue-stocking will remain a spinster as long as there are sensible men on the earth. [Fr., Toute fille lettree restera fille toute sa vie, quand il n'y aura que des hommes senses sur la terre.]

The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.

Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow's dark array, - Days of absence, I am weary; She I love is far away.

I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?

We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.

Childhood has it's own way of seeing, thinking, and feeling, and nothing is more foolish than to try to substitute ours for theirs.

The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived.

It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.

Posterity is always just.

I had been brought up in a church which decides everything and permits no doubts, so that having rejected one article of faith I was forced to reject the rest.

What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires.

Remorse goes to sleep during a prosperous period and wakes up in adversity. [Fr., Le remords s'endort durant un destin prospere et s'aigrit dans l'adversite.]

If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable to men.

Every artists wants to be applauded

Even knaves may be made good for something.

Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth.