Works By Jean Jacques Rousseau

"I believe that my friends would have forgiven me for writing books – even excellent books – because such a reputation was attainable by themselves; but they were unable to forgive me for having composed an opera, or for its brilliant success, because not one of them was capable of following the same career, or aspiring to the same honour."

"Thus the Opera kept my piece and defrauded me of the recompense for which I had surrendered my rights in it. Between the weak and the strong, this would be called robbery; between the strong and the weak, it is simply called the appropriation of what belongs to one’s neighbour."

"I had a tolerably large number of acquaintances, but only two chosen friends, Diderot and Grimm. Owing to the desire, which I always feel, to bring together all who are dear to me, I was so devoted a friend of both, that it was unavoidable that they should soon become equally devoted to each other."

"Thrown, in spite of myself, into the great world, without possessing its manners, and unable to acquire or conform to them, I took it into my head to adopt manners of my own, which might enable me to dispense with them. Being unable to overcome my foolish and disagreeable shyness, which proceeded from the fear of offending against the rules of polite society, I resolved, in order to give myself courage, to trample them underfoot. Shame made me cynical and sarcastic. I affected to despise the politeness which I did not know how to practise."

"I took great delight in M. Salomon’s conversation; it seemed to me that, while in his company, I was acquiring a foretaste of that higher knowledge, which was reserved for my soul, when it had lost the fetters which confined it. My predilection for him extended to the subjects which he discussed, and I began to look for books which might help me to understand him better."

"A man who, at the age of five-and-twenty, knows nothing and wishes to learn everything, is bound to make the best use of his time. Not knowing at what point destiny or death might arrest my zeal, I desired, in any case, to get an idea of everything, in order to discover the special bent of my natural abilities, and also to judge for myself what was worthy of cultivation."

"I began with some philosophical treatise, such as the Logic of Port-Royal, Locke’s Essay, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Descartes, &c. I soon observed that all these authors nearly always contradicted each other, and I conceived the fanciful idea of reconciling them, which fatigued me greatly, and made me lose considerable time. I muddled my head without making any progress. At last, abandoning this plan, I adopted one that was infinitely better, to which I attribute all the progress which, in spite of my want of talent, I may have made; for it is certain that I never had much capacity for study. As I read each author, I made a practice of adopting and following up all his ideas, without any admixture of my own or of those of anyone else, and without ever attempting to argue with him."

"I did not find that my critical faculties had lost their vigour owing to my having begun to exercise them late; and, when I published my own ideas, I have never been accused of being a servile disciple, or of swearing in verba magistri."

"It is sometimes said that the sword wears out the scabbard. That is my history. My passions have made me live, and my passions have killed me. What passions? will be asked. Trifles, the most childish things in the world, which, however, excited me as much as if the possession of Helen or the throne of the universe had been at stake. In the first place – women. When I possessed one, my senses were calm; my heart, never. The needs of love devoured me in the midst of enjoyment; I had a tender mother, a dear friend; but I needed a mistress."

"But this project, the carrying out of which would probably have plunged me into the study of botany, for which, as it appears to me, I was born, failed in consequence of one of those unexpected accidents which overthrow the best concerted plans. I was fated to become by degrees an example of human misery"

"The colouring of the maps of our geometricians had also given me a taste for drawing. I bought some colours, and began to paint flowers and landscapes. It was a pity that I found I possessed but little talent for this art, for I was entirely devoted to it. I could have spent whole months in the midst of my crayons and pencils without going out. As this occupation occupied too much of my attention, they were compelled to drag me away from it. It is always the same with all the pursuits to which I begin to devote myself; they grow upon me, become a passion, and soon I see nothing else in the world but my favourite amusement. Age has not cured me of this fault, it has not even diminished it; even while I write this, I sit like an old twaddler, infatuated with another study, which is useless to me and of which I understand nothing, which even those who have devoted themselves to it during their youth, are obliged to give up at the age when I want to begin it."

"What did I care for readers, the public, or the whole world, while I was mounting to the skies? Besides, did I carry pens and paper with me? If I had thought of all that, nothing would have occurred to me. I did not foresee that I should have ideas; they come to me when it pleases them, not when it pleases me. They either do not come at all, or they come in crowds, and overwhelm me with their force and number. Ten volumes a day would not have been sufficient. When could I find time to write them? When I arrived at any town, I thought of nothing but a good dinner; when I left it, of nothing but a good walk, I felt that a new paradise was waiting for me at the door. I thought only of going to find it."

"even if the sacrifices which are made to duty and virtue are painful to make, they are well repaid by the sweet recollections which they leave at the bottom of the heart."

"However, in spite of all the time that he devoted to me, in spite of the hearty goodwill with which we both devoted ourselves to our studies, and although he went quite the right way to work, I made little progress, although I worked hard. It is singular that, although endowed with considerable powers of apprehension, I have never been able to learn anything with tutors, with the exception of my father and M. Lambercier. The little additional knowledge I possess I owe to my own unaided efforts, as will be presently seen. My spirit, impatient of any kind of constraint, cannot submit to the laws of the moment; even the fear of not learning prevents my attention; for fear of making those who are talking to me impatient, I pretend to understand them; they accordingly go on, and I understand nothing. My mind must fix its own time for work; it cannot submit to that which is fixed by another."

"The sound of the bells, which always singularly affects me, the song of the birds, the beauty of the daylight, the enchanting landscape, the scattered country dwellings in which my fancy placed our common home – all these produced upon me an impression so vivid, tender, melancholy and touching, that I saw myself transported, as it were, in ecstasy, into that happy time and place, wherein my heart, possessing all the happiness it could desire, tasted it with inexpressible rapture, without even a thought of sensual pleasure."

"I thought that a man must be a fool to sacrifice such good fortune to ambitious plans, slow, difficult, and uncertain of fulfilment, which, even supposing them to be someday realised, in spite of all their brilliancy, were not worth a quarter of an hour of real pleasure and youthful freedom."

"if ever a child received a sensible and sound education, it was myself. I belonged to a family which was distinguished by its manners from the common people; from all my relations I had learnt nothing but lessons of wisdom, and had had honourable examples before my eyes. My father, although fond of pleasure, was not only a man of strict integrity but of considerable religious feeling. A man of gallantry in the world and a Christian at heart, he had early instilled into me the sentiments which he felt. Of my three aunts, who were all prudent and virtuous, the two eldest were pious; the youngest, a girl full of grace, talent and good sense, was perhaps even more pious, although she made less show of it. From the bosom of this estimable family I went to M. Lambercier, who, though a churchman and preacher, was at heart a believer, and nearly always practised what he preached. He and his sister, by gentle and judicious training, cultivated the principles of piety which they found in my heart. These worthy people, with this object, employed means so sincere, so prudent and so sensible that, far from being wearied by their preaching, I always felt deeply affected by it and formed the best resolutions, which I rarely forgot to carry out when I thought of them."

"I consequently knew as much about religion as was possible for a child of my age. I even knew more, for why should I conceal my thoughts? My childhood was not that of a child; I always felt and thought as a man. It was only when I grew up that I re-entered the class of ordinary individuals; as a child I did not belong to it. The reader will laugh to find me modestly representing myself as a prodigy. So be it; but when he has laughed sufficiently, let him find a child who, in his sixth year, is so attracted, interested and carried away by romances as to shed hot tears over them; then I shall feel that my vanity is ridiculous, and will confess that I am wrong. If I have said that we ought not to speak about religion to children, if we wish them to possess any, and, further, that they are incapable of knowing God, even according to our ideas, I have drawn this conviction from my observations, not from my own experience, for I knew that no conclusion could be drawn from it in regard to others. Find me Jean-Jacques Rousseaus of six years old, and speak to them of God when they are seven; I will guarantee that you run no risk."

"This principle, deeply imprinted on the bottom of my heart, which, although somewhat late, in practice guided my whole conduct, is one of those which have caused me to appear a very strange and foolish creature in the eyes of the world, and, above all, amongst my acquaintances. I have been reproached with wanting to pose as an original, and different from others. In reality, I have never troubled about acting like other people or differently from them. I sincerely desired to do what was right. I withdrew, as far as it lay in my power, from situations which opposed my interests to those of others, and might, consequently, inspire me with a secret, though involuntary, desire of injuring them."

"The vilest tastes, the lowest street-blackguardism took the place of my simple amusements and effaced even the remembrance of them. I must, in spite of a most upright training, have had a great propensity to degenerate; for the change took place with great rapidity, without the least trouble, and never did soprecocious a Caesar so rapidly become a Laridon."

"In this manner I learnt to covet in silence, to dissemble, to lie, and, lastly, to steal – an idea which, up to that time, had never even entered my mind, and of which since then I have never been able to cure myself completely. Covetousness and weakness always lead in that direction. This explains why all servants are rogues, and why all apprentices ought to be; but the latter, in a peaceful state of equality, where all that they see is within their reach, lose, as they grow up, this disgraceful propensity. Not having had the same advantages, I have not been able to reap the same benefits."

"In this strange situation, my restless imagination entered upon an occupation which saved me from myself and calmed my growing sensuality. This consisted in feeding myself upon the situations which had interested me in the course of my reading, in recalling them, in varying them, in combining them, in making them so truly my own that I became one of the persons who filled my imagination, and always saw myself in the situations most agreeable to my taste; and that, finally, the fictitious state in which I succeeded in putting myself made me forget my actual state with which I was so dissatisfied. This love of imaginary objects, and the readiness with which I occupied myself with them, ended by disgusting me with everything around me, and decided that liking for solitude which has never left me."

"I should never finish these details if I were t follow all the paths along which, during my apprenticeship, I descended from the sublimity of heroism to the depths of worthlessness. And yet, although I adopted the vices of my position, I could not altogether acquire a taste for them. I wearied of the amusements of my companions; and when excessive restraint had rendered work unendurable to me, I grew tired of everything. This renewed my taste for reading, which I had for some time lost. This reading, for which I stole time from my work, became a new offence which brought new punishment upon me. The taste for it, provoked by constraint, became a passion, and soon a regular madness. La Tribu, a well-known lender of books, provided me with all kinds of literature. Good or bad, all were alike to me; I had no choice, and read everything with equal avidity. I read at the work-table, I read on my errands, I read in the wardrobe, and forgot myself for hours together; my head became giddy with reading; I could do nothing else. My master watched me, surprised me, beat me, took away my books. How many volumes were torn, burnt, and thrown out of the window!"

"My liveliest desire was to be loved by all who came near me. I was of a gentle disposition; my cousin and our guardians were the same. During two whole years I was neither the witness nor the victim of any violent feeling. Everything nourished in my heart those tendencies which it received from Nature. I knew no higher happiness than to see all the world satisfied with me and with everything. I shall never forget how, if I happened to hesitate when saying my catechism in church, nothing troubled me more than to observe signs of restlessness and dissatisfaction on Mademoiselle Lambercier’s face. That alone troubled me more than the disgrace of failing in public, which, nevertheless, affected me greatly: for, although little susceptible to praise, I felt shame keenly; and I may say here that the thought of Mademoiselle’s reproaches caused me less uneasiness than the fear of offending her."

"Who would believe that this childish punishment, inflicted upon me when only eight years old by a young woman of thirty, disposed of my tastes, my desires, my passions, and my own self for the remainder of my life, and that in a manner exactly contrary to that which should have been the natural result? When my feelings were once inflamed, my desires so went astray that, limited to what I had already felt, they did not trouble themselves to look for anything else. In spite of my hot blood, which has been inflamed with sensuality almost from my birth, I kept myself free from every taint until the age when the coldest and most sluggish temperaments begin to develop. In torments for a long time, without knowing why, I devoured with burning glances all the pretty women I met; my imagination unceasingly recalled them to me, only to make use of them in my own fashion."

"In this manner, then, in spite of an ardent, lascivious and precocious temperament, I passed the age of puberty without desiring, even without knowing of any other sensual pleasures than those of which Mademoiselle Lambercier had most innocently given me the idea; and when, in course of time, I became a man, that which should have destroyed me again preserved me. My old childish taste, instead of disappearing, became so associated with the other, that I could never banish it from the desires kindled by my senses; and this madness, joined to my natural shyness, has always made me very unenterprising with women, for want of courage to say all or power to do all."

"One may judge what such confessions have cost me, from the fact that, during the whole course of my life, I have never dared to declare my folly to those whom I loved with the frenzy of a passion which deprived me of sight and hearing, which robbed me of my senses and caused me to tremble all over with a convulsive movement."

"Imagine a child, shy and obedient in ordinary life, but fiery, proud, and unruly in his passions: a child who had always been led by the voice of reason and always treated with gentleness, justice, and consideration, who had not even a notion of injustice, and who for the first time becomes acquainted with so terrible an example of it on the part of the very people whom he most loves and respects! What an upset of ideas! what a disturbance of feelings! what revolution in his heart, in his brain, in the whole of his little intellectual and moral being! Imagine all this, I say, if possible. As for myself, I feel incapable of disentangling and following up the least trace of what then took place within me."

"It is too difficult to think nobly, when one thinks only in order to live. In order to be able and to venture to utter great truths, one must not be dependent upon success. I threw my books amongst the public with the sure consciousness of having spoken for the general good, without caring for anything else. If the work was rejected, so much the worse for those who refused to profit by it. As for myself, I did not need their approval in order to live; my profession would support me, if my books did not sell; and it was just this which made them sell."

"I had a brother seven years older than myself, who was learning my father’s trade. The excessive affection which was lavished upon myself caused him to be somewhat neglected, which treatment I cannot approve of. His education felt the consequences of this neglect. He took to evil courses before he was old enough to be a regular profligate. He was put with another master, from whom he was continually running away, as he had done from home. I hardly ever saw him; I can scarcely say that I knew him; but I never ceased to love him tenderly, and he loved me as much as a vagabond can love anything.Read more at location 241"

"I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent, and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man myself."

"Myself alone! 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."

"Hence comes the extreme difficulty which I find in writing. My manuscripts, scratched, smeared, muddled and almost illegible, bear witness to the trouble they have cost me. There is not one of them which I have not been obliged to copy four or five times before I could give it to the printer. I have never been able to produce anything, pen in hand, in front of my table and paper; it is during a walk, in the midst of rocks and forests, at night in my bed while lying awake, that I write in my brain; one may judge how slowly, especially in the case of a man utterly without verbal memory and who has never been able to learn six lines by heart in his life. Many of my periods have been turned and turned again five or six nights in my head before they were fit to be set down on paper. This, also, is the reason why I succeed better in works which require labour than in those which require to be written with a certain lightness of style, such as letters – a style of which I have never been able to properly catch the tone, so that such occupation is a perfect torture to me. I cannot write a letter on the most trifling subject, which does not cost me hours of fatigue; or, if I try to write down immediately what occurs to me, I know neither how to begin nor how to end; my letter is a long and confused mass of verbosity, and, when it is read, my meaning is difficult to make out. Not only is it painful for me to put my ideas into shape: I also find a difficulty in grasping them. I have studied mankind, and believe that I am a fairly shrewd observer; nevertheless, I cannot see clearly anything of all that I perceive; I only see clearly what I remember, and only show intelligence in my recollections. Of all that is said, of all that is done, of all that goes on in my presence, I feel nothing, I see through nothing. The outward sign is the only thing that strikes me. But, later, all comes back to me; I recall place, time, manner, look, gesture, and circumstance: nothing escapes me. Then, from what people have said or done, I discover what they have thought; and I am rarely mistaken. If, when alone with myself, I am so little master of my intellectual capacity, it may be imagined what I must be in conversation, when, in order to speak to the purpose, it is necessary to think of a thousand things at the same time and at once."

"The justice and uselessness of my complaints left in my mind the seeds of indignation against our foolish civil institutions, whereby the real welfare of the public and true justice are always sacrificed to an apparent order, which is in reality subversive of all order, and of which the only effect is, to bestow the sanction of public authority upon the oppression of the weak and the injustice of the strong."

"My first appearance led me by a new path into another intellectual world, the simple and lofty economy of which I was unable to look upon without enthusiasm. My continued attention to it soon convinced me, that there was nothing but error and folly in the doctrine of our philosophers, and misery and oppression in our social arrangements. Deluded by my foolish pride, I thought that I was born to destroy all these illusions, and, believing that, in order to gain a hearing, it was necessary for my manner of life to harmonise with my principles, I adopted the singular course which I have not been permitted to continue, in which I set an example for which my pretended friends have never forgiven me, which at first made me ridiculous, and would have ended by making me respectable, if it had been possible for me to persevere in it."

"Hitherto I had been good; from that moment I became virtuous, or, at least, intoxicated with virtue. This intoxication had commenced in my head, but had passed on into my heart. The noblest pride sprang up therein on the ruins of uprooted vanity. I pretended nothing; I became really what I seemed; and, for the four years at least, during which this state of effervescence lasted in all its force, there was nothing great or beautiful, which a man’s heart could contain, of which I was not capable between heaven and myself. This was the origin of my sudden eloquence, of the truly celestial fire which inflamed me and spread over my first writings, and which for forty years had not emitted the least spark, since it was not yet kindled."

"I might have thrown myself entirely into the most lucrative path, and, instead of lowering my pen to copying, I might have devoted it entirely to writings, which, in the flight which I had taken, and which I felt myself capable of continuing, might have enabled me to live in opulence, even in luxury, if only I had been disposed to combine, in the smallest degree, an author’s tricks with carefulness to produce good books. But I felt that writing for bread would soon have stifled my genius and destroyed my talents, which were more those of the heart than of the pen, and arose solely from a proud and elevated manner of thinking, which alone could support them."

"while I trampled underfoot the senseless judgements of the common herd of the so-called great and wise, I suffered myself to be subjugated and led like a child by so-called friends, who, jealous of seeing me strike out a new path by myself, thought of nothing but how to make me appear ridiculous, and began by doing their utmost to degrade me, in order to raise an outcry against me. It was the change in my character, dating from this period, rather than my literary celebrity, that drew their jealousy upon me; they would perhaps have forgiven me for distinguishing myself in the art of writing; but they could not forgive me for setting an example, in my change of life, which seemed likely to cause them inconvenience."

"From the moment I read these words, I beheld another world and became another man. Although I have a lively recollection of the impression which they produced upon me, the details have escaped me since I committed them to paper in one of my four letters to M. de Malesherbes. This is one of the peculiarities of my memory which deserves to be mentioned. It only serves me so long as I am dependent upon it. As soon as I commit its contents to paper it forsakes me, and when I have once written a thing down, I completely forget it. This peculiarity follows me even into music. Before I learned it, I knew a number of songs by heart. As soon as I was able to sing from notes, I could not retain a single one in my memory, and I doubt whether I should now be able to repeat, from beginning to end, a single one of those which were my greatest favourites. What I distinctly remember on this occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes I was in a state of agitation bordering upon madness. Diderot perceived it. I told him the reason, and read to him the Prosopopoea of Fabricius, written in pencil under an oak-tree. He encouraged me to allow my ideas to have full play, and to compete for the prize. I did so, and from that moment I was lost. The misfortunes of the remainder of my life were the inevitable result of this moment of madness."

"With inconceivable rapidity, my feelings became elevated to the tone of my ideas. All my petty passions were stifled by the enthusiasm of truth, liberty and virtue; and the most astonishing thing is, that this fervour continued in my heart for more than four or five years, in a higher degree, perhaps, than has ever been the case with the heart of any other man."

"I know nothing which exercises a more powerful influence upon my heart than an act of courage, performed at an opportune moment, on behalf of the weak who are unjustly oppressed"

"I can understand how it is that the inhabitants of cities, who see nothing but walls, streets and crimes, have so little religious belief; but I cannot understand how those who live in the country, especially in solitude, can have none. How is it that their soul is not lifted up in ecstasy a hundred times a day to the Author of the wonders which strike them?"

"An enemy to everything that comes under the denomination of party, faction, and cabal, I have never expected any good from those who belong to them."

"So difficult is it to manage the irritable amour-propre of literary men, and such great care is necessary, in paying them compliments, to leave nothing which can even be suspected of a double meaning."

"Nothing shows a man’s true inclinations better than the character of those whom he loves."

"There is no soul so vile, no heart so barbarous, that it is not susceptible of some kind of attachment."

"So true it is that, in every condition of life, the strong man who is guilty saves himself at the expense of the innocent who is weak."

"I knew that my talent consisted entirely in a certain lively interest in the subjects which I had to treat, and that nothing but the love of the great, the true, and the beautiful, could enliven my genius."

"My views were even more hostile to their principles and influence than the unbelief of my colleagues, since atheistic and religious fanaticism, which approach closely in their common intolerance, are even capable of uniting, as they have done in China, and as they do now against myself; whereas rational and moral religion, which takes away all human control over the conscience, deprives of further resource those who claim that power."

"I soon had an opportunity to disclose them unreservedly in a work of greater importance; for it was, I think, in this year (1753) that the ‘Origin of Inequality amongst Mankind’ appeared as the subject proposed for discussion by the Academy of Dijon. Struck by this great question, I felt surprised that this Academy had ventured to propose it; but since it had had the courage to do so, I thought I might have the courage to discuss it, and undertook the task."