Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Passions Quotes

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Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of the body.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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
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
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
Reason developed and cultivated will always be the most powerful curb to the passions: this is the compass of all mankind.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The source of all passions is sensitiveness: it is the errors of imagination that transform them into vices.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
It is the path of the passions which has led me to philosophy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All passions are good when one masters them; all are bad when one is a slave to them.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau