Top 15 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

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

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

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

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

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

I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.

What wisdom can you find greater than kindness.

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

Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.