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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A feeble body makes a feeble mind. I do not know what doctors cure us of, but I know this: they infect us with very deadly diseases, cowardice, timidity, credulity, the fear of death. What matter if they make the dead walk, we have no need of corpses...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I am not made like any of those I have seen. I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Liberty is like rich food and strong wine: the strong natures accustomed to them thrive and grow even stronger on them; but they deplete, inebriate and destroy the weak.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Children are taught to look down on their nurses (nannies), to treat them as mere servants. When their task is completed the child is withdrawn or the nurse is dismissed. Her visits to her foster-child are discouraged by a cold reception. After a few...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

She was dull, unattractive, couldn't tell the time, count money or tie her own shoe laces... But I loved her

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

God (Nature, in my view) makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He fores one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another's fruit. He confuses and confounds time, place, and natural conditions. He mutila...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

More than half of my life is past; I have left only the time I need for turning the rest of it to account and for effacing my errors by my virtues.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We must powder our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[When under stress I thought of] the books I had read [and applied] them to myself. I [imagined I was] one of the characters [and soon found myself] in made-up circumstances which were most agreeable to my inclinations.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[T]he man who meditates is a depraved animal.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The truth brings no man a fortune.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Money is the seed of money, and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

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