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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The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all the pains which make us truly unhappy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need someone to teach us the art of learning with difficulty.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

...there is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what others have thought is so much time lost in learning to think for ourse...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him strong; he will be good. He who could do everything would never do harm.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence; many even deprive themselves of it to the extent they are abl...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

L’harmonie, me disait-il, n’est qu’un accessoire éloigné dans la musique imitative; il n’y a dans l’harmonie proprement dite aucun principe d’imitation. Elle assure, il est vrai, les intonations; elle porte témoignage de leur justesse;...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Truth is an homage that the good man pays to his own dignity.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ah,' thought the king sadly, shrugging his shoulders, "I see clearly that if one has a crazy wife, one cannot avoid being a fool.' ("Queen Fantasque")

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

As she put it, she knew of nothing so ravishing as having a child whom she could whip whenever she was in a bad mood. ("The Queen Fantasque")

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It was only as part of the civilizing process that storytelling developed within the aristocratic and bourgeois homes, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through governesses and nannies, and later in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuri...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The literary fairy tale became an acceptable social symbolic form through which conventionalized motifs, characters, and plots were selected, composed, arranged, and rearranged to comment on the civilizing process and to keep alive the possibility of...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Once upon a time there was a great queen who, having given birth to twin daughters, invited twelve fairies who lived nearby to come and bestow gifts upon them, as was the custom in those days. Indeed, it was a very useful custom, for the power of the...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We can't give you any further information," the fairies replied. "Be satisfied, madam, with the assurance that your daughter will be happy." She thanked them very much and did not forget to give them many presents. Although the fairies were quite ric...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly ...

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