Top 400 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “All that time is lost which might be better employed.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

203. “People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little. It is plain than an ignorant person thinks everything he does know important, and he tells it to everybody. But a well-educated man is not so ready to display his learning; he would have too much to say, and he sees that there is much more to be said, so he holds his peace.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

204. “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

205. “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

206. “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

207. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

210. “Posterity is always just.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

211. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

216. “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

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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

221. “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

222. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

227. “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

228. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

231. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

233. “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

234. “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

235. “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

236. “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

237. “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

238. “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

239. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

241. “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

242. “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

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

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

244. “But in some great souls, who consider themselves as citizens of the world, and forcing the imaginary barriers that separate people from people...”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

245. “To live is not to breathe but to act.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

246. “Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

247. “There exists one book, which, to my taste, furnishes the happiest treatise of natural education. What then is this marvelous book? Is it Aristotle? Is it Pliny, is it Buffon? No-it is Robinson Crusoe.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

248. “Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

249. “Since these conveniences by becoming habitual had almost entirely ceased to be enjoyable, and at the same time degenerated into true needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to possess them.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

250. “The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau