Jean-Baptiste Rousseau Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
As soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin by making them love their country.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
The man who has lived the longest is not he who has spent the greatest number of years, but he who has had the greatest sensibility of life.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contemporaries is the most valuable part of his recompense.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
The vine that has been made to bear fruit in the spring, withers and dies before autumn.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
If you have but a single ruler, you lie at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love you: and if you have several, you must bear at once their tyranny and their divisions.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau