Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Quote by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Work

The Social Contract

This influential work delves into the philosophical underpinnings of political authority and governance, examining the relationship between individuals and the state through the lens of a hypothetical social contract. more

Author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French philosopher, writer, and composer, considered one of the most important figures of the Enlightenment. His works have had a profound impact on subsequent literature, political, and social theories. more

You May Also Like

“It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for social experiments, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will request a portion of mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is well known how popular the ideaof trying all systems is, and one of their chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent Assembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make his experiments. It is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before he makes one of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances, the agriculturist some seed and corner of his field, to make trial of an idea. But think of the difference between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his substances, between the agriculturist and his seed! The Socialist thinks, in all sincerity, that there is the same difference between himself and mankind. No wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artifical production of the legislator's genius. This idea, the result of a classical education, has taken possession of all the thinkers and great writers of our country. To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator appear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the potter.”

SocialismPoliticiansLegislator
Book:The Law
Create image

“Like his Russian contemporary Dostoevsky — who wrote his entire novel ‘The Gambler’ in three weeks to pay off desperate gambling debts — Mendeleev threw together his first table to meet a textbook publisher’s deadline.”

DostoevskyPeriodic TableThe GamblerMendeleev
Book:The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
Create image