Jean-Baptiste Rousseau Quotes

• Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Wisdom, Practice, Age

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Judging

  10 Copy quote

• The less reasonable a cult is, the more men seek to establish it by force.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Men, Political, Atheism

  13 Copy quote

• The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Foundation, Conquest, Strongest

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• Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contemporaries is the most valuable part of his recompense.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Artist, Praise, Applause

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• 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

  Fall, Citizens, Public Service

  "The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right" by Jean Jacques Rousseau, book III. chapter XV, Deputies or Representatives, 1913.

  4 Copy quote

• Truth is no road to fortune.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Truth, Truth Is, Fortune

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• Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin by making them love their country.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Country, Men, Patriotism

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• 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

  Art, Philosophy, Ambition

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• 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

  Men, Years, Numbers

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• To reign by opinion, begin by trampling it under your feet.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Feet, Reign, Opinion

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• Coercion created slavery, the cowardice of the slaves perpetuated it.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Slavery, Coercion, Cowardice

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• Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Inability, Speech, Tongue

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Society, Trying

  "Du Contrat Social" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by G. D. H. Cole, 1913.

  69 Copy quote

• Who does not sufficiently hate vice, does not sufficiently love virtue.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Hate, Vices, Doe

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• The Catholic must adopt the decision handed down to him; the Protestant must learn to decide for himself.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Christian, Decision, Catholic

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• 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

  Lying, Love You, Division

  4 Copy quote

• They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have been once seduced by luxury, they can ever renounce it.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Luxury, Littles, Imagine

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• Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Men, People, Perfect

  7 Copy quote

• The vine that has been made to bear fruit in the spring, withers and dies before autumn.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Spring, Autumn, Vines

  4 Copy quote

• Old men grasp more at life than babies, and leave it with a much worse grace than young people. It is because all their labours having been for this life, they perceive at last their trouble lost.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Baby, Men, People

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• 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

  Real, Men, Enemy

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• 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

  Peaceful, Foundation, Firsts

  52 Copy quote

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