Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes

For nature is good, an man is 'by nature' good; it is civilization which ruins him

Father asked us what was God's noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they were quite devoid of goodness.

Nobody is born evil.

We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

For there is nothing so social by nature, [and] so unsocial by its corruption, as this race.

The philosophers, who have inquired into the foundations of society, have all felt the necessity of going back to a state of nature; but not one of them has got there.

I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

I believe people are wonderful. The vast majority of people have never hurt anybody in their lives.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue.

I've never met anyone who is seriously bad.

Government, as it was forced upon mankind by their vices, so has it commonly been the creature of their ignorance and mistake.

I believe there's good in everybody.

DO I BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE ARE BASICALLY GOOD? Yes, I do believe that, and I trust Buddhists and Hindus and Moslems to seek the good and to want to live in peace.

People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.

Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature.

People are not evil; they are schlemiels.

We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.

Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.

Only a fool can believe people are basically good

Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters.

Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish.

Weakness arouses evil. The American people know this.

Evil is not interesting. What is it, chopping off someone's head? We used to do that as kids, you know, you tear up paper dolls and stuff. I know everyone's done it in the history of the world, but maybe everybody was dumb and they were just looking for something interesting to do. What's really interesting and hard is being good.

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.