Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

I am not worried about pleasing clever minds or fashionable people. In every period there will be men fated to be governed by the opinions of their century, their country, and their society. For that...

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many...

All wickedness comes from weakness. The child is wicked only because he is weak. Make him strong; he will be good. He who could do everything would never do harm.

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted…without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of...

I hear from afar the shouts of that false wisdom which is ever dragging us onwards, counting the present as nothing, and pursuing without pause a future which flies as we pursue, that false wisdom...

Even the soberest judged it requisite to sacrifice one part of their liberty to ensure the other, as a man, dangerously wounded in any of his limbs, readily parts with it to save the rest...

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

L’harmonie, me disait-il, n’est qu’un accessoire éloigné dans la musique imitative; il n’y a dans l’harmonie proprement dite aucun principe d’imitation. Elle assure, il est vrai, les intonations; elle porte témoignage de leur justesse; et,...

The extreme inequality of our ways of life, the excess of idleness among some and the excess of toil among others, the ease of stimulating and gratifying our appetites and our senses, the over-elaborate foods...

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: ‘If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are...

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices.

To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence....

When I stay in one Place, I can hardly think at all; my body had to be on the move to set my mind going.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care that of preserving it.

Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave...

What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil...

I ask: which of the two, civil or natural life, is more likely to become insufferable to those who live it? We see about us practically no people who do not complain about their existence;...

…an animal, at the end of a few months, is what it will be all its life; and its species, at the end of a thousand years, is what it was in the first of...

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

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Europe had fallen back into the barbarity of the first ages. People from this part of world, so enlightened today, lived a few centuries ago in a state worse than ignorance. Some sort of learned...

How much more reasonable is it to say with the sage Plato, that the perfect happiness of a state consists in the subjects obeying their prince, the prince obeying the laws, and the laws being...

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...

In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to...

…there is no real advance in human reason, for what we gain in one direction we lose in another; for all minds start from the same point, and as the time spent in learning what...

God (Nature, in my view) makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil. He fores one soil to yield the products of another, one tree to bear another’s fruit. He confuses...

Hold childhood in reverence, and do not be in any hurry to judge it for good or ill. Leave exceptional cases to show themselves, let their qualities be tested and confirmed, before special methods are...

Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?

Among the many short cuts to science, we badly need someone to teach us the art of learning with difficulty.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State “What does it matter to me?” the State may be given up for lost.

An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle; while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even whip and spur: so savage man will...

Government in its infancy had no regular and permanent form. For want of a sufficient fund of philosophy and experience, men could see no further than the present inconveniences, and never thought of providing remedies...

Résumons en quatre mots le pacte social des deux états. Vous avez besoin de moi, car je suis riche et vous êtes pauvre ; faisons donc un accord entre nous : je permettrai que vous...

I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a certain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder...

A feeble body makes a feeble mind. I do not know what doctors cure us of, but I know this: they infect us with very deadly diseases, cowardice, timidity, credulity, the fear of death. What...

I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.

The real world has its limits; the imaginary world is infinite. Unable to enlarge the one, let us restrict the other, for it is from the difference between the two alone that are born all...

As she put it, she knew of nothing so ravishing as having a child whom she could whip whenever she was in a bad mood.(“The Queen Fantasque”)

I have never thought, for my part, that man’s freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is...

Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.” (Bk2:8)

Children are taught to look down on their nurses (nannies), to treat them as mere servants. When their task is completed the child is withdrawn or the nurse is dismissed. Her visits to her foster-child...