Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseauwas a Francophone Genevan 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...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 June 1712
CityGeneva, Switzerland
CountryFrance
children ruins ease
The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin.
giving community constitution
Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.
liberty
Equality, because without it there can be no liberty.
men desire able
That man is truly free who desires what he is able to perform, and does what he desires.
feet america humanity
And when the relics of humanity left among the Spaniards induced them to forbid their lawyers to set foot in America, what must they have thought of jurisprudence? May it not be said that they thought, by this single expedient, to make reparation for all the outrages they had committed against the unhappy Indians?
children character men
The indifference of children towards meat is one proof that the taste for meat is unnatural; their preference is for vegetable foods...Beware of changing this natural taste and making children flesh-eaters, if not for their health's sake, for the sake of their character; for how can one explain away the fact that great meat-eaters are usually fiercer and more cruel than other men; this has been recognised at all times and in all places.
people deceived
The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived...
rights citizens kind
The social compact sets up among the citizens as equality of such kind, that they all bind themselves to observe the same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights.
book mean simple
Behold the works of our philosophers; with all their pompous diction, how mean and contemptible they are by comparison with the Scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of man?
mean body refuse
Whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free.
order soul doubt
Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.
eye littles pay
He who eats in idleness that which he himself has not earned, steals it; and a capitalist whom the state pays for doing nothing differs little in my eyes from a brigand, who lives at the expense of passers-by.
hero style would-be
Jewish authors would never have invented either that style nor that morality; and the Gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so utterly inimitable, that the invention of it would be more astonishing than the hero.
wind break persons
A person who can break wind is not dead.