Top 400 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “All that time is lost which might be better employed.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

202. “When my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and I believe in God as firmly as in any other truth whatever; in short, a thousand motives draw me to the consolatory side, and add the weight of hope to the equilibrium of reason.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

203. “I am a hundred times happier in my solitude than I could be if I lived among them.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

204. “The passions are the voice of the body.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

205. “Whoever is endowed with a power superior to mankind, should also be above the weakness of humanity, without which, that excess of strength would, in effect, only sink him below the most feeble, or what he would actually have been, had he remained their equal.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

206. “No one is happy unless he respects himself.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

207. “The “sociable” man, always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

208. “I think we cannot too strongly attack superstition, which is the disturber of society; nor too highly respect genuine religion, which is the support of it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

209. “Women speak at an earlier age, more easily, and more agreeably than men; they are accused also of speaking more; this is as it should be, and I willingly change the reproach into a eulogy.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

210. “Our greatest misfortunes come to us from ourselves.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

211. “Posterity is always just.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

212. “Generally we obtain very surely and very speedily what we are not too anxious to obtain.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

213. “The truths of the Scriptures are so marked and inimitable, that the inventor would be more of a miraculous character than the hero.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

214. “How many centuries must have elapsed before men reached the point of seeing any other fire than that in the sky?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

215. “Physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

216. “We do not know what really good or bad fortune is.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

217. “For the State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights;.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

218. “So now I am alone in the world, with no brother, neighbour or friend, nor any company left me but my own.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

219. “That which renders life burdensome to us generally arises from the abuse of it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

220. “Do not base your life on the judgments of others; first, because they are as likely to be mistaken as you are, and further, because you cannot know that they are telling you their true thoughts.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

221. “The money which a man possesses is the instrument of freedom; that which we eagerly pursue is the instrument of slavery. Therefore I hold fast to that which I have, and desire nothing.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

222. “I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

223. “Many men, seemingly impelled by fortune, hasten forward to meet misfortune half way.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

224. “Self-love, which concerns itself only with ourselves, is content to satisfy our own needs; but selfishness, which is always comparing self with others, is never satisfied and never can be; for this feeling, which prefers ourselves to others, requires that they should prefer us to themselves, which is impossible.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

225. “Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

226. “The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

227. “Respect childhood, and leave nature to act for a long time before you get involved with acting in its place.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

228. “It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

229. “Government originated in the attempt to find a form of association that defends and protects the person and property of each with the common force of all.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

231. “The man who meditates is a depraved animal.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

232. “No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

233. “Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

234. “Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

235. “Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

236. “Man’s first language, the most universal, the most energetic and the only language he needed before it was necessary to persuade men assembled together, is the cry of nature.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

237. “Ah, that is a perfume in which I delight; when they roast coffee near my house, I hasten to open the door to take in all the aroma.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

238. “With children use force; with men reason; such is the natural order of things. The wise man requires no law.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

239. “Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

240. “In Genoa, the word, libertas can be read on the front of prisons and on the fetters of galley-slaves. The application of this motto is fine and just.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

241. “Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

242. “From this moment there would be no question of virtue or morality; for despotism cui ex honesto nulla est spes, wherever it prevails, admits no other master; it no sooner speaks than probity and duty lose their weight and blind obedience is the only virtue which slaves can still practice.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

243. “Love childhood, indulge its sports, its pleasures, its delightful instincts. Who has not sometimes regretted that age when laughter was ever on the lips, and when the heart was ever at peace?”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

244. “We can never put ourselves in the shoes of children; we cannot fathom their thoughts, we lend them ours; and always following ourown reasoning, we stuff their heads with extravagance and error.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

245. “It is as if my heart and my brain did not belong to the same person. Feelings come quicker than lightning and fill my soul, but they bring me no illumination; they burn me and dazzle me.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

246. “The writings of women are always cold and pretty like themselves. There is as much wit as you may desire, but never any soul.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

247. “I think it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe can last much longer.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

248. “An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced all common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

249. “Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

250. “The French painter Rousseau was once asked why he put a naked woman on a red sofa in the middle of his jungle pictures. He answered, ‘I needed a bit of red there.’”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau