The Social Contract quotes

I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics.

I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so.

If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.

I enter upon my task without proving the importance of the subject. I shall be asked if I am a prince or a legislator, to write on politics. I answer that I am neither, and that is why I do so.

If I were a prince or a legislator, I should not waste time in saying what wants doing; I should do it, or hold my peace.

As I was born a citizen of a free State, and a member of the Sovereign, I feel that, however feeble the influence my voice can have on public affairs, the right of voting on them makes it my duty to study them:

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.

Aristotle was right; but he took the effect for the cause. Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery.

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition.

If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

Nothing can be more certain than that every man born in slavery is born for slavery. Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition.

If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature.

Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition. If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature.

Force made the first slaves, and their cowardice perpetuated the condition.

I have said nothing of King Adam, or Emperor Noah, father of the three great monarchs who shared out the universe, like the children of Saturn, whom some scholars have recognised in them. I trust to getting due thanks for my moderation;

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

Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase?

Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated.

All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor?

A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.

What do they gain, if the very tranquillity they enjoy is one of their miseries?

Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in?

The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their turn to be devoured.

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind.

To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right.

Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it.

It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.

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

For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

So, from whatever aspect we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless.

The words “slave” and “right” contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive.

It will always be equally foolish for a man to say to a man or to a people: “I make with you a convention wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage;

and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular.

The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be.

This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that they would fulfil their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity.

In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body.

This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence.

In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimizes civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.

We are told that the jugglers of Japan dismember a child before the eyes of the spectators; then they throw all the members into the air one after another, and the child falls down alive and whole.

The conjuring tricks of our political theorists are very like that; they first dismember the body politic by an illusion worthy of a fair, and then join it together again we know not how.

This error is due to a lack of exact notions concerning the Sovereign authority, and to taking for parts of it what are only emanations from it. Thus, for example, the acts of declaring war and making peace have been regarded as acts of Sovereignty;

but it would have been a sad truth for them to tell, and would have paid court for them to no one save the people.

Moreover, truth is no road to fortune, and the people dispenses neither ambassadorships, nor professorships, nor pensions.

The difficulty of answering this question seems to me to lie in its being wrongly stated. Every man has a right to risk his own life in order to preserve it.

Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out of the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

Has such a crime ever been laid to the charge of him who perishes in a storm because, when he went on board, he knew of the danger?

But, it will be said, the condemnation of a criminal is a particular act. I admit it: but such condemnation is not a function of the Sovereign; it is a right the Sovereign can confer without being able itself to exert it.

All my ideas are consistent, but I cannot expound them all at once.

We may add that frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or remissness on the part of the government. There is not a single ill-doer who could not be turned to some good.

it is when a State is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity. Under the Roman Republic, neither the Senate nor the Consuls ever attempted to pardon; even the people never did so, though it sometimes revoked its own decision.

Frequent pardons mean that crime will soon need them no longer, and no one can help seeing whither that leads.

But I feel my heart protesting and restraining my pen; let us leave these questions to the just man who has never offended, and would himself stand in no need of pardon.

… shown the good road it is in search of, secured from the seductive influences of individual wills, taught to see times and spaces as a series, and made to weigh the attractions of present and sensible advantages against the danger of distant and hidden evils.

The individuals see the good they reject; the public wills the good it does not see.

All stand equally in need of guidance. The former must be compelled to bring their wills into conformity with their reason; the latter must be taught to know what it wills.

How can a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wills, because it rarely knows what is good for it, carry out for itself so great and difficult an enterprise as a system of legislation?

Of itself the people wills always the good, but of itself it by no means always sees it.

The general will is always in the right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened. It must be got to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it;

Of itself the people wills always the good, but of itself it by no means always sees it.

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

It must be got to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it;

and lastly, it would have, in the march of time, to look forward to a distant glory, and, working in one century, to be able to enjoy in the next.

It would take gods to give men laws.

What Caligula argued from the facts, Plato, in the dialogue called the Politicus, argued in defining the civil or kingly man, on the basis of right. But if great princes are rare, how much more so are great legislators?

But it is not anybody who can make the gods speak, or get himself believed when he proclaims himself their interpreter.

The great soul of the legislator is the only miracle that can prove his mission.

Any man may grave tablets of stone, or buy an oracle; or feign secret intercourse with some divinity, or train a bird to whisper in his ear, or find other vulgar ways of imposing on the people.

He whose knowledge goes no further may perhaps gather round him a band of fools; but he will never found an empire, and his extravagances will quickly perish with him.

Idle tricks form a passing tie; only wisdom can make it lasting.

The Judaic law, which still subsists, and that of the child of Ishmael, which, for ten centuries, has ruled half the world, still proclaim the great men who laid them down;

A thousand nations have achieved earthly greatness, that could never have endured good laws; even such as could have endured them could have done so only for a very brief period of their long history.

Most peoples, like most men, are docile only in youth; as they grow old they become incorrigible.

When once customs have become established and prejudices inveterate, it is dangerous and useless to attempt their reformation;

Then disturbances may destroy it, but revolutions cannot mend it: it needs a master, and not a liberator. Free peoples, be mindful of this maxim: “

Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.

”

but the maturity of a people is not always easily recognisable, and, if it is anticipated, the work is spoilt. One people is amenable to discipline from the beginning; another, not after ten centuries.

Russia will never be really civilised, because it was civilised too soon.

Peter had a genius for imitation; but he lacked true genius, which is creative and makes all from nothing. He did some good things, but most of what he did was out of place.

There is still in Europe one country capable of being given laws—Corsica. The valour and persistency with which that brave people has regained and defended its liberty well deserves that some wise man should teach it how to preserve what it has won.

I have a feeling that some day that little island will astonish Europe.

Such equality, we are told, is an unpractical ideal that cannot actually exist. But if its abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we should not at least make regulations concerning it?

It is precisely because the force of circumstances tends continually to destroy equality that the force of legislation should always tend to its maintenance.

But these general objects of every good legislative system need modifying in every country in accordance with the local situation and the temper of the inhabitants;

The subject therefore remaining always a unit, the relation between him and the Sovereign increases with the number of the citizens.

From this it follows that, the larger the State, the less the liberty.

When I say the relation increases, I mean that it grows more unequal. Thus the greater it is in the geometrical sense, the less relation there is in the ordinary sense of the word.

In such a case, the State being altered in substance, all reformation becomes impossible.

A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed.

If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be. It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few to be governed.

In such a case, the State being altered in substance, all reformation becomes impossible. A people that would never misuse governmental powers would never misuse independence; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed.

If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be.

It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few to be governed.

Under such a constitution above all, the citizen should arm himself with strength and constancy, and say, every day of his life, what a virtuous Count Palatine said in the Diet of Poland: “Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.”

Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

but, this interest being merely secondary and subordinate, and strength being incompatible with submission, princes naturally give the preference always to the principle that is more to their immediate advantage. This is what Samuel put strongly before the Hebrews, and what Macchiavelli has clearly shown.

He professed to teach kings; but it was the people he really taught. His Prince is the book of Republicans.

We found, on general grounds, that monarchy is suitable only for great States, and this is confirmed when we examine it in itself.

Unfortunately, it will always be derided at court. The power which comes of a people’s love is no doubt the greatest; but it is precarious and conditional, and princes will never rest content with it.

The best kings desire to be in a position to be wicked, if they please, without forfeiting their mastery

: political sermonisers may tell them to their hearts’ content that, the people’s strength being their own, their first interest is that the people should be prosperous, numerous and formidable; they are well aware that this is untrue.

political sermonisers may tell them to their hearts’ content that, the people’s strength being their own, their first interest is that the people should be prosperous, numerous and formidable; they are well aware that this is untrue.

Their first personal interest is that the people should be weak, wretched, and unable to resist them.

I admit that, provided the subjects remained always in submission, the prince’s interest would indeed be that it should be powerful, in order that its power, being his own, might make him formidable to his neighbours;

For a monarchical State to have a chance of being well governed, its population and extent must be proportionate to the abilities of its governor.

It is easier to conquer than to rule.

With a long enough lever, the world could be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders of Hercules. However small a State may be, the prince is hardly ever big enough for it.

For a monarchical State to have a chance of being well governed, its population and extent must be proportionate to the abilities of its governor. It is easier to conquer than to rule.

With a long enough lever, the world could be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders of Hercules.

However small a State may be, the prince is hardly ever big enough for it.

It is easier to conquer than to rule. With a long enough lever, the world could be moved with a single finger; to sustain it needs the shoulders of Hercules.

However small a State may be, the prince is hardly ever big enough for it.

When, on the other hand, it happens that the State is too small for its ruler, in these rare cases too it is ill governed, because the ruler, constantly pursuing his great designs, forgets the interests of the people, and makes it no less wretched …

There was sound sense in what the younger Dionysius said to his father, who reproached him for doing some shameful deed by asking, “Did I set you the example?” “No,” answered his son, “but your father was not king.”

Everything conspires to take away from a man who is set in authority over others the sense of justice and reason.

Much trouble, we are told, is taken to teach young princes the art of reigning; but their education seems to do them no good. It would be better to begin by teaching them the art of obeying.

Everything conspires to take away from a man who is set in authority over others the sense of justice and reason. Much trouble, we are told, is taken to teach young princes the art of reigning; but their education seems to do them no good.

It would be better to begin by teaching them the art of obeying.

The greatest kings whose praises history tells were not brought up to reign: reigning is a science we are never so far from possessing as when we have learnt too much of it, and one we acquire better by obeying than by commanding.

God sends bad kings in His wrath, and they must be borne as the scourges of Heaven. Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more in place in a pulpit than in a political book.

What are we to think of a doctor who promises miracles, and whose whole art is to exhort the sufferer to patience?

We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad government when it is there; the question is how to find a good one.

Such talk is doubtless edifying; but it would be more in place in a pulpit than in a political book. What are we to think of a doctor who promises miracles, and whose whole art is to exhort the sufferer to patience?

We know for ourselves that we must put up with a bad government when it is there; the question is how to find a good one.

The strength of the people, on the other hand, acts only when concentrated: when spread abroad, it evaporates and is lost, like powder scattered on the ground, which catches fire only grain by grain.

The least populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce animals reign only in deserts.

Their numbers and population. Seek then nowhere else this mark that is in dispute. The rest being equal, the government under which, without external aids, without naturalisation or colonies, the citizens increase and multiply most, is beyond question the best.

The government under which a people wanes and diminishes is the worst.

Calculators, it is left for you to count, to measure, to compare.

Such is the natural and inevitable tendency of the best constituted governments.

If Sparta and Rome perished, what State can hope to endure forever?

If we would set up a long-lived form of government, let us not even dream of making it eternal.

If we are to succeed, we must not attempt the impossible, or flatter ourselves that we are endowing the work of man with a stability of which human conditions do not permit.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries in itself the causes of its destruction.

But both may have a constitution that is more or less robust and suited to preserve them a longer or a shorter time. The constitution of man is the work of nature; that of the State the work of art.

The people in assembly, I shall be told, is a mere chimera. It is so today, but two thousand years ago it was not so. Has man’s nature changed?

The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow than we imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that confine them.

Base souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery at the name of liberty.

The bounds of possibility, in moral matters, are less narrow than we imagine: it is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that confine them.

Base souls have no belief in great men; vile slaves smile in mockery at the name of liberty.

Let us judge of what can be done by what has been done. I shall say nothing of the Republics of ancient Greece; but the Roman Republic was, to my mind, a great State, and the town of Rome a great town.

People the territory evenly, extend everywhere the same rights, bear to every place in it abundance and life: by these means will the State become at once as strong and as well governed as possible.

Remember that the walls of towns are built of the ruins of the houses of the countryside.

For every palace I see raised in the capital, my mind’s eye sees a whole country made desolate.

by these means will the State become at once as strong and as well governed as possible. Remember that the walls of towns are built of the ruins of the houses of the countryside.

For every palace I see raised in the capital, my mind’s eye sees a whole country made desolate.

When it is necessary to march out to war, they pay troops and stay at home: when it is necessary to meet in council, they name deputies and stay at home.

By reason of idleness and money, they end by having soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.

It is through the hustle of commerce and the arts, through the greedy self-interest of profit, and through softness and love of amenities that personal services are replaced by money payments.

Men surrender a part of their profits in order to have time to increase them at leisure.

Make gifts of money, and you will not be long without chains.

The word “finance” is a slavish word, unknown in the city-state. In a country that is truly free, the citizens do everything with their own arms and nothing by means of money;

Men surrender a part of their profits in order to have time to increase them at leisure. Make gifts of money, and you will not be long without chains.

The word “finance” is a slavish word, unknown in the city-state.

In a country that is truly free, the citizens do everything with their own arms and nothing by means of money; so far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would even pay for the privilege of fulfilling them themselves.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

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.

The lukewarmness of patriotism, the activity of private interest, the vastness of States, conquest and the abuse of government suggested the method of having deputies or representatives of the people in the national assemblies.

The deputies of the people, therefore, are not and cannot be its representatives: they are merely its stewards, and can carry through no definitive acts. Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void—is, in fact, not a law.

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 use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them.

Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void—is, in fact, not a law. 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 use it makes of the short moments of liberty it enjoys shows indeed that it deserves to lose them.

Your severer climates add to your needs; for half the year your public squares are uninhabitable; the flatness of your languages unfits them for being heard in the open air; you sacrifice more for profit than for liberty, and fear slavery less than poverty.

What then? Is liberty maintained only by the help of slavery? It may be so. Extremes meet.

Everything that is not in the course of nature has its disadvantages, civil society most of all.

There are some unhappy circumstances in which we can only keep our liberty at others’ expense, and where the citizen can be perfectly free only when the slave is most a slave. Such was the case with Sparta.

As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are slaves yourselves; you pay for their liberty with your own.

It is in vain that you boast of this preference; I find in it more cowardice than humanity.

I do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have slaves, or that the right of slavery is legitimate: I am merely giving the reasons why modern peoples, believing themselves to be free, have representatives, while ancient peoples had none.

In any case, the moment a people allows itself to be represented, it is no longer free: it no longer exists.

All things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth for the Sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of its rights, unless the city is very small. But if it is very small, it will be conquered? No.

In this case, all the springs of the State are vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous; there are no embroilments or conflicts of interests; the common good is everywhere clearly apparent, and only good sense is needed to perceive it.

Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of political subtleties.

Men who are upright and simple are difficult to deceive because of their simplicity; lures and ingenious pretexts fail to impose upon them, and they are not even subtle enough to be dupes.

but his share in the public mishaps seems to him negligible beside the exclusive good he aims at making his own. Apart from this particular good, he wills the general good in his own interest, as strongly as anyone else.

Even in selling his vote for money, he does not extinguish in himself the general will, but only eludes it.

The fault he commits is that of changing the state of the question, and answering something different from what he is asked.

At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs; this is the case when the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both liberty and will.

Fear and flattery then change votes into acclamation; deliberation ceases, and only worship or malediction is left.

Such was the vile manner in which the senate expressed its views under the Emperors. It did so sometimes with absurd precautions.

This is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary of all acts. Every man being born free and his own master, no one, under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his consent.

To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born a man.

If then there are opponents when the social compact is made, their opposition does not invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them from being included in it. They are foreigners among citizens. When the State is instituted, residence constitutes consent;

But though I feel the weight Cicero’s authority must carry on such a point, I cannot agree with him; I hold, on the contrary, that, for want of enough such changes, the destruction of the State must be hastened.

Just as the regimen of health does not suit the sick, we should not wish to govern a people that has been corrupted by the laws that a good people requires.

There is no better proof of this rule than the long life of the Republic of Venice, of which the shadow still exists, solely because its laws are suitable only for men who are wicked.

It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature.

Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself.

Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of morality judges of honour;

both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men’s opinions, and their morality will purge itself.

Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong.

This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion.

What an honour for the one, and what a disgrace for the other, without praise or blame of either! Certain drunkards from Samos polluted the tribunal of the Ephors: the next day, a public edict gave Samians permission to be filthy.

An actual punishment would not have been so severe as such an impunity.

When Sparta has pronounced on what is or is not right, Greece makes no appeal from her judgments.

Nay, more, so far from binding the hearts of the citizens to the State, it has the effect of taking them away from all earthly things. I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.

We are told that a people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. I see in this supposition only one great difficulty: that a society of true Christians would not be a society of men.

I say further that such a society, with all its perfection, would be neither the strongest nor the most lasting: the very fact that it was perfect would rob it of its bond of union;

But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime.

True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes.

I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it. Show me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be told of the Crusades.

Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable.

It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.

Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.