Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State 'What does it matter to me?' the State may be given up for lost.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.

The general will is always right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.

The problem is to find a form of association that will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.

Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself.

The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked.

It is, then, the problem of finding a form of association that will defend and protect the person and goods of each associate with the collective force of all, and under which each individual, while uniting with all, may still obey only himself and remain as free as before.

The most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.