Quotes by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

About Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a 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.
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Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled; and are carried upwards; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go; because we go...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

He was not utterly unskilled in handling his own lack of training, and he refused to be rashly drawn into a controversy about those matters from which there would be no exit nor easy way of retreat. This was an additional ground for my pleasure. For ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every day my conscience makes confession relying on the hope of Your mercy as more to be trusted than its own innocence.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I was not much afraid of punishment, I was only afraid of disgrace.But that I feared more than death, more than crime, more than anything in the world. I should have rejoiced if the earth had swallowed me up and stifled me in the abyss. But my invinc...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted...without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed. ...The impossib...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Often the contempt of vainglory becomes a source of even more vainglory, for it is not being scorned when the contempt is something one is proud of.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For you [God] are infinite and never change. In you 'today' never comes to an end: and yet our 'today' does come to an end in you, because time, as well as everything else, exists in you. If it did not, it would have no means of passing. And since yo...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

So finally we tumble into the abyss, we ask God why he has made us so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, He replies through our consciences: 'I have made you too feeble to climb out of the pit, because i made you strong enough not to fall in.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The sword wears out its sheath, as it is sometimes said. That is my story. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me. What passions, it may be asked. Trifles, the most childish things in the world. Yet they affected me as much as ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I fell away from you, my God, and I went astray, too far astray from you, the support of my youth, and I became to myself a land of want.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance – You oh God – towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

That vague and wandering opinion of Deity is declared by an apostle to be ignorance of God:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it. It has that within which must offend Thine eyes; I confess and know it. But who shall cleanse it? or to whom should I cry, save Thee? Lord, c...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart. Nay, even idolatry is ample evidence of this fact.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Résumons en quatre mots le pacte social des deux états. Vous avez besoin de moi, car je suis riche et vous êtes pauvre ; faisons donc un accord entre nous : je permettrai que vous ayez l'honneur de me servir, à condition que vous me donnerez le p...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care that of preserving it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Now it is easy to perceive that the moral part of love is a factitious sentiment, engendered by society, and cried up by the women with great care and address in order to establish their empire, and secure command to that sex which ought to obey.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Author Bio

  • NameJean-Jacques Rousseau
  • DescriptionGenevan philosopher
  • BornJune 28, 1712
  • DiedJuly 2, 1778
  • CountryFrance; Switzerland
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Botanist; Composer; Choreographer; Writer; Musicologist; Literary; Musician; Novelist; Autobiographer; Music Theorist