Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (6 April 1671 – 17 March 1741) was a French playwright and poet, particularly noted for his cynical epigrams.
Truth is no road to fortune.
Every artist loves applause. The praise of his contemporaries is the most valuable part of his recompense.
Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.
They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have been once seduced by luxury, they can ever renounce it.
Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses.
It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him.
Each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.
To reign by opinion, begin by trampling it under your feet.
If you have but a single ruler, you lie at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love you: and if you have several, you must bear at once their tyranny and their divisions.
Readiness of speech is often inability to hold the tongue.
Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin by making them love their country.
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.
The less reasonable a cult is, the more men seek to establish it by force.
The Catholic must adopt the decision handed down to him; the Protestant must learn to decide for himself.