Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau Quotes

“The mind has its needs, just as the body does. The latter are the
foundations of society; from the former emerge the pleasures of
society. While government and laws take care of the security
and the well being of men in groups, the sciences, letters, and
the arts, less despotic and perhaps more powerful, spread
garlands of flowers over the iron chains which weigh men
down, snuffing out in them the feeling of that original liberty for
which they appear to have been born, and make them love their
slavery by turning them into what are called civilized people.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9

“What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves?”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9

“But so long as power remains by itself on one side, and enlightenment and wisdom isolated on the other, wise men will rarely think of great things, princes will more rarely carry out fine actions, and the people will continue to be vile, corrupt, and unhappy.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9

“I will simply ask: What is philosophy? What do the
writings of the best known philosophers contain? What are the
lessons of these friends of wisdom? To listen to them, would
one not take them for a troupe of charlatans crying out in a
public square, each from his own corner: "Come to me. I'm the
only one who is not wrong"?”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9

“When innocent and
virtuous men liked to have gods as witnesses of their actions,
they lived with them in the same huts. But having soon become
evil, they grew weary of these inconvenient spectators and
relegated them to magnificent temples.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9

“Nowadays, when more subtle studies and more refined taste
have reduced the art of pleasing into principles, a vile and
misleading uniformity governs our customs, and all minds seem
to have been cast in the same mould: incessantly politeness
makes demands, propriety issues orders, and incessantly people
follow customary usage, never their own inclinations. One does
not dare to appear as what one is. And in this perpetual
constraint, men who make up this herd we call society, placed in
the same circumstances, will all do the same things, unless more
powerful motives prevent them. Thus, one will never know well
the person one is dealing with.”
― Jean Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres de J. J. Rousseau: Avec Des Notes Historiques, Volume 9