Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void—is in fact, not a law.

The more the state is augmented, the less liberty remains.

It is solely on the basis of this common interest that every society should be governed.

The greatest good for all is liberty and equality.

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

If there is any state in the world where a man can enjoy his liberty, it is in the state of nature.

The most useful and least advanced of all human knowledge seems to me to be that of man.

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 feeling of existence.

I have never believed that liberty was made for all men.

The most useful and important rule of all education is not to gain time, but to lose it.

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.

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

Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man.

There is no true happiness without true virtue.

To be ourselves is the greatest happiness.

The most dangerous of all sentiments is pity.

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

The love of humanity is nothing but the love of justice.

The only way to avoid error is to have no ideas.

Man is naturally good, and it is society that corrupts him.