Jean-Jacques Rousseau People Quotations

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

Most people believe that the longer you let these things go, the more likely you are to have something go wrong.

The strength of the people is effective only if it is concentrated; it evaporates and is lost when it is dispersed, just as gunpowder scattered on the ground ignites only grain by grain.

If there wasn't a God we would have to invent one to keep people sane.

If there were a people consisting of gods, they would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is not suitable to men.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is; the people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived, and on such occasions only does it seem to will what is bad.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls.

Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.

As long as there are rich people in the world, they will be desirous of distinguishing themselves from the poor.

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

The members of a body-politic call it "the state" when it is passive, "the sovereign" when it is active, and a "power" when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title "people," and they refer to one another individually as "citizens" when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as "subjects" when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.

The people is never corrupted, but it is often deceived...

Universal silence must be taken to imply the consent of the people.

If I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority?

Sovereigns always see with pleasure a taste for the arts of amusement and superfluity, which do not result in the exportation of bullion, increase among their subjects. They very well know that, besides nourishing that littleness of mind which is proper to slavery, the increase of artificial wants only binds so many more chains upon the people.

I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.

The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.

I hate books, for they only teach people to talk about what they don't understand.

Teach your scholar to observe the phenomena of nature; you will soon rouse his curiosity, but if you would have it grow, do not be in too great a hurry to satisfy this curiosity. Put the problems before him and let him solve them himself. Let him know nothing because you have told him, but because he has learnt it for himself. Let him not be taught science, let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority for reason he will cease to reason; he will be a mere plaything of other people's thoughts.

We must powder our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.

Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.

It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry majority goes in need of necessities.

People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence,however, is corrupted by the evils of society.

If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires?

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society