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Jean-Jacques Rousseau

47 quotes

“Let's go dance under the elms: Step lively, young lassies. Let's go dance under the elms: Gallants, take up your pipes.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) first seen 1752 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Le devin du village (1752)
“All that time is lost which might be better employed.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use: Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but comprising many from the Greek, Spanish, and Italian Languages, translated into English (1809) by David Evans Ma…
“L'accent est l'âme du discours.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English translation as quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 2.
“An honest man nearly always thinks justly.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 277.
“A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 301.
“Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow's dark array,— Days of absence, I am weary: She I love is far away.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Day of Absence, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Also quoted by: Jean Jacques Rousseau
“Chère amie, ne savez-vous pas que la vertu est un état de guerre, et que, pour y vivre, on a toujours quelque combat à rendre contre soi?”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) first seen 1761 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (French), Sixième partie, Lettre VII Réponse (1761)
“I shall need only myself to be happy.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) first seen 1758 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The prophetic voice, 1758-1778 by Lester G. Crocke, p. 148.
“The supreme enjoyment is in satisfaction with oneself ; it is in order to deserve this satisfaction that we are placed on earth and endowed with freedom.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What good would it be to possess the whole universe if one were its only survivor?”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) first seen 1756 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Lasting Peace Through the Federation of Europe (1756)
“L'offenseur ne pardonne jamais.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Émile et Sophie, ou Les Solitaires, "Lettre Première" (1781)
“Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things; childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place, and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external forces, which are beyond our control.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our island is this earth; and the most striking object we behold is the sun. As soon as we pass beyond our immediate surroundings, one or both of these must meet our eye. Thus the philosophy of most savage races is mainly directed to imaginary divisions of the earth or to the divinity of the sun.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a general rule—never substitute the symbol for the thing signified, unless it is impossible to show the thing itself; for the child's attention is so taken up with the symbol that he will forget what it signifies.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have entered on an enterprise which is without precedent, and will have no imitator. I propose to show my fellows a man as nature made him, and this man shall be myself.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know my heart, and have studied mankind; I am not made like any one I have been acquainted with, perhaps like no one in existence; if not better, I at least claim originality, and whether Nature did wisely in breaking the mould with which she formed me, can only be determined after having read this work.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“J'adore la liberté; j'abhorre la gêne, la peine, l'assujettissement. Tant que dure l'argent que j'ai dans ma bourse, il assure mon indépendance; il me dispense de m'intriguer pour en trouver d'autre, nécessité que j'eus toujours en horreur; mais de peur de le voir finir, je le choie. L'argent qu'on possède est l'instrument de la liberté; celui qu'on pourchasse est celui de la servitude.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Le remords s'endort durant un destin prospère et s'aigrit dans l'adversité.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hatred, as well as love, renders its votaries credulous.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: "Well, let them eat cake".”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) first seen 1740 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This passage contains a statement Qu'ils mangent de la brioche that has usually come to be attributed to Marie Antoinette; this was written in 1766, when Marie Antoinette was 10 and still 4 years away from her marriage …
“The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He thinks like a philosopher, but governs like a king.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I had to say was so clear and I felt it so deeply that I am amazed by the tediousness, repetitiousness, verbiage, and disorder of this writing. What would have made it lively and vehement coming from another's pen is precisely what has made it dull and slack coming from mine. The subject was myself, and I no longer found on my own interest that zeal and vigor of courage which can exalt a generous soul only for another person's cause.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There as here, passions are the motive of all action, but they are livelier, more ardent, or merely simpler and purer, thereby assuming a totally different character. All the first movements of nature are good and right.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beings who are so uniquely constituted must necessarily express themselves in other ways than ordinary men. It is impossible that with souls so differently modified, they should not carry over into the expression of their feelings and ideas the stamp of those modifications.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for the Soothsayer, although I am certain no one feels the true beauties of that work better than I, I am far from finding these beauties in the same places as the infatuated public does. They are not the products of study and knowledge, but rather are inspired by taste and sensitivity.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I want you to read the true system of the heart, drafted by a decent man and published under another name. I do not want you to be biased against good and useful books merely because a man unworthy of reading them has the audacity to call himself the Author.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through the fortunate effect of my frankness, I had the rarest and surest opportunity to know a man well, which is to study him at leisure in his private life and living, so to speak, with himself. For he share himself without reservation and made me feel as much at home in his house as in mine. I had almost no other abode than his own.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Much more naturally than you do: because flight is a much more natural consequence of fear than of hate. He doesn't flee men because he hates them, but because he is afraid of them. He doesn't flee them in order to harm them, but to try o escape the harm they wish to do to him. They, on the contrary, don't seek him through friendship, but through hate. They seek him and he flees from them just as in the wilderness of Africa, where there are few men and many tigers, the men flee the tigers, the men flee the tigers, and the tigers seek the men.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is unfortunate for J.J that Rousseau cannot say everything he knows about him.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“J.J. did not always flee from men, but he has always loved solitude. He enjoyed himself with the friends he velieved he had, but he enjoyed himself still more alone. He valued their society, but he sometimes needed to withdraw, and he would perhaps have preferred to live always alone than always with them.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh providence! Oh nature! Treasure of the poor, resource of the unfortunate. The person who feels, knows your holy laws and trusts them, the person whose heart is at peace and whose body does not suffer, thanks to you is not entirely prey to adversity.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Visions are a feeble resource, you will say, against great adversity! Oh Sir, these visions may possibly have more reality than all those apparent goods about which men make so much ado, for they never bring a true feeling of happiness to the soul, and those who possess them are equally forced to project themselves into the future for want of finding enjoyments that satisfy them, in the present.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Two conflicting types of educational systems spring from these conflicting aims. One is public and common to many, the other private and domestic. If you wish to know what is meant by public education, read Plato's Republic. Those who merely judge books by their titles take this for a treatise on politics, but it is the finest treatise on education ever written. In popular estimation the Platonic Institute stands for all that is fanciful and unreal. For my own part I should have thought the system of Lycurgus far more impracticable had he merely committed it to writing. Plato only sought to purge man's heart; Lycurgus turned it from its natural course. The public institute does not and cannot exist, for there is neither country nor patriot. The very words should be struck out of our language. The reason does not concern us at present, so that though I know it I refrain from stating it.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only one man who gets his own way—he who can get it single-handed; therefore freedom, not power, is the greatest good. That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires. This is my fundamental maxim. Apply it to childhood, and all the rules of education spring from it. Society has enfeebled man, not merely by robbing him of the right to his own strength, but still more by making his strength insufficient for his needs. This is why his desires increase in proportion to his weakness; and this is why the child is weaker than the man. If a man is strong and a child is weak it is not because the strength of the one is absolutely greater than the strength of the other, but because the one can naturally provide for himself and the other cannot. Thus the man will have more desires and the child more caprices, a word which means, I take it, desires which are not true needs, desires which can only be satisfied with the help of others.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As soon as we have contrived to give our pupil an idea of the word "Useful," we have got an additional means of controlling him, for this word makes a great impression on him, provided that its meaning for him is a meaning relative to his own age, and provided he clearly sees its relation to his own well-being. This word makes no impression on your scholars because you have taken no pains to give it a meaning they can understand, and because other people always undertake to supply their needs so that they never require to think for themselves, and do not know what utility is. "What is the use of that?”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At first our pupil had merely sensations, now he has ideas; he could only feel, now he reasons. For from the comparison of many successive or simultaneous sensations and the judgment arrived at with regard to them, there springs a sort of mixed or complex sensation which I call an idea. The way in which ideas are formed gives a character to the human mind. The mind which derives its ideas from real relations is thorough; the mind which relies on apparent relations is superficial. He who sees relations as they are has an exact mind; he who fails to estimate them aright has an inaccurate mind; he who concocts imaginary relations, which have no real existence, is a madman; he who does not perceive any relation at all is an imbecile. Clever men are distinguished from others by their greater or less aptitude for the comparison of ideas and the discovery of relations between them. Simple ideas consist merely of sensations compared one with another. Simple sensations involve judgments, as do the complex sensations which I call simple ideas. In the sensation the judgment is purely passive; it affirms that I feel what I feel. In the percept or idea the judgment is active; it connects, compares, it discriminates between relations not perceived by the senses. That is the whole difference; but it is a great difference. Nature never deceives us; we deceive ourselves.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest, the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive, it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most of these modifications are the result of external influences, without which they would never occur, and such modifications, far from being advantageous to us, are harmful. They change the original purpose and work against its end; then it is that man finds himself outside nature and at strife with himself.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Complete ignorance with regard to certain matters is perhaps the best thing for children; but let them learn very early what it is impossible to conceal from them permanently. Either their curiosity must never be aroused, or it must be satisfied before the age when it becomes a source of danger. Your conduct towards your pupil in this respect depends greatly on his individual circumstances, the society in which he moves, the position in which he may find himself, etc. Nothing must be left to chance; and if you are not sure of keeping him in ignorance of the difference between the sexes till he is sixteen, take care you teach him before he is ten.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a man's conduct is controlled by public fact, so is her religion ruled by authority. The daughter should follow her mother's religion, the wife her husband's. Were that religion false, the docility which leads mother and daughter to submit to nature's laws would blot out the sin of error in the sight of Goddess. Unable to judge for themselves they should accept the judgment of father and husband as that of the church. While men unaided cannot deduce the rules of their faith, neither can they assign limits to that faith by the evidence of reason; they allow themselves to be driven hither and thither by all sorts of external influences, they are ever above or below the truth. Extreme in everything, they are either altogether reckless or altogether pious; you never find them able to combine virtue and piety. Their natural exaggeration is not wholly to blame; the ill-regulated control exercised over them by men is partly responsible. Loose morals bring religion into contempt; the terrors of remorse make it a tyrant; this is why women have always too much or too little religion. As a woman's religion is controlled by authority it is more important to show her plainly what to believe than to explain the reasons for belief; for faith attached to ideas half-understood is the main source of fanaticism, and faith demanded on behalf of what is absurd leads to madness or unbelief. Whether our catechisms tend to produce impiety rather than fanaticism I cannot say, but I do know that they lead to one or other. In the first place, when you teach religion to little girls never make it gloomy or tiresome, never make it a task or a duty, and therefore never give them anything to learn by heart, not even their prayers. Be content to say your own prayers regularly in their presence, but do not compel them to join you. Let their prayers be short, as Christ himself has taught us. Let them always be said with becoming reverence and respect; remember that if we ask the Almighty to give heed to our words, we should at least give heed to what we mean to say.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you reached the age of reason, I secured you from the influence of human prejudice; when your heart awoke I preserved you from the sway of passion. Had I been able to prolong this inner tranquillity till your life's end, my work would have been secure, and you would have been as happy as man can be; but, my dear Emile, in vain did I dip you in the waters of Styx, I could not make you everywhere invulnerable; a fresh enemy has appeared, whom you have not yet learnt to conquer, and from whom I cannot save you. That enemy is yourself. Nature and fortune had left you free. You could face poverty, you could bear bodily pain; the sufferings of the heart were unknown to you; you were then dependent on nothing but your position as a human being; now you depend on all the ties you have formed for yourself; you have learnt to desire, and you are now the slave of your desires. Without any change in yourself, without any insult, any injury to yourself, what sorrows may attack your soul, what pains may you suffer without sickness, how many deaths may you die and yet live! A lie, an error, a suspicion, may plunge you in despair.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a mistake to classify the passions as lawful and unlawful, so as to yield to the one and refuse the other. All alike are good if we are their masters; all alike are bad if we abandon ourselves to them. Nature forbids us to extend our relations beyond the limits of our strength; reason forbids us to want what we cannot get, conscience forbids us, not to be tempted, but to yield to temptation. To feel or not to feel a passion is beyond our control, but we can control ourselves. Every sentiment under our own control is lawful; those which control us are criminal. A man is not guilty if he loves his neighbour's wife, provided he keeps this unhappy passion under the control of the law of duty; he is guilty if he loves his own wife so greatly as to sacrifice everything to that love.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever the last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself before the sovereign judge with this book in my hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted; these were my thoughts; such was I. With equal freedom and veracity have I related what was laudable or wicked, I have concealed no crimes, added no virtues; and if I have sometimes introduced superfluous ornament, it was merely to occupy a void occasioned by defect of memory: I may have supposed that certain, which I only knew to be probable, but have never asserted as truth, a conscious falsehood. Such as I was, I have declared myself; sometimes vile and despicable, at others, virtuous, generous and sublime; even as thou hast read my inmost soul: Power eternal! assemble round thy throne an innumerable throng of my fellow-mortals, let them listen to my confessions, let them blush at my depravity, let them tremble at my sufferings; let each in his turn expose with equal sincerity the failings, the wanderings of his heart, and, if he dare, aver, I was better than that man.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let's not be dazzled by the sententious glitter with which error and lying often cover themselves. Society is not created by the crowd, and bodies come together in vain when hearts reject each other. The truly sociable man is more difficult in his relationships than others; those which consist only in false appearances cannot suit him. He prefers to live far from wicked men without thinking about them, than to see them and hate them. He prefers to flee his enemy rather than seek him out to harm him. A person who knows no other society than that of the heart will not seek his society in your circles. That is How J.J. must have thought and behaved before the conspiracy of which he is the object.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sensitivity is the principle of all action. A being, albeit animated, who would feel nothing, would never act, for what would its motive for acting be? God himself is sensitive since he acts. All men are therefore sensitive, and perhaps to the same degree, but not in the same manner. There is a purely passive physical and organic sensitivity which seems to have as its end only the preservation of our bodies and of our species through the direction of pleasure and pain. There is another sensitivity that I call active and moral which is nothing other than the faculty of attaching our affections to beings who are foreign to us. This type, about which study of nerve pairs teaches nothing, seems to offer a fairly clear analogy for souls to the magnetic faculty of bodies. Its strength is in proportion to the relationships we feel between ourselves and other beings, and depending on the nature of these relationships it sometimes acts positively by attraction, sometimes negatively by repulsion, like the poles of a magnet. The positive or attracting action is the simple work of nature, which seeks to extend and reinforce the feeling of our being; the negative or repelling action, which compresses and diminishes the being of another, is a combination produced by reflection. From the former arise all the loving and gentle passions, and from the latter all the hateful and cruel passions.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He neither seeks nor avoids talking about his enemies. When he does speak of them, it is with pride without disdain, humor without rancor, reproach without bitterness, frankness without spite. And in the same way, he speaks of his rivals for glory only with deserved praises that conceal no hidden venom, which can certainly not be said of the praise they sometimes give him. But what I find in him that is most rare in an Author and and even in a sensitive man is the most perfect tolerance in matters of feelings and opinions, and the putting aside of all partisan spirit, even in his own favor; wanting freely to state his opinion and his reasons when the issue demands it, and even doing so with passion when his heart is agitated; but not blaming people for not adopting what he feels any more than he puts up with anyone's wish to deprive him of his feeling; and giving everyone the same freedom of thought as he insists on having for himself. I hear everyone talk about tolerance, but he is the only truly tolerant person I have known.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source