Patience patience quotes is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Slavery and rights are inherently opposing concepts that cannot coexist.
In this quote, Rousseau asserts that the concept of slavery fundamentally contradicts the principles of rights and justice. He critiques the idea of agreements that exploit one party at the expense of another, emphasizing that true respect and ethics cannot exist in a relationship founded on domination and inequality, regardless of the nature of that relationship.
Themes
SlaveryRightsJusticeEqualityCovenantDominance
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on human rights, this quote can emphasize the incompatibility of slavery and true justice.
More from Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All quotes →The infant, on opening his eyes, ought to see his country, and to the hour of his death never lose sight of it.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
As evening approached, I came down from the heights of the island, and I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge me into delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
Similar quotes
When people begin to ignore human dignity, it will not be long before they begin to ignore human rights.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?
George CarlinRead
the better angels of our nature
Abraham LincolnRead
In every man and in every animal, however weak or wicked, great or small, resides the same omnipresent, omniscient soul. The difference is not in the soul, but in the manifestation. Between me and the smallest animal, the difference is only in manifestation, but as a principle he is the same as I am, he is my brother, he has the same soul as I have. This is the greatest principle that India has preached.
Swami VivekanandaRead
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
Karl MarxRead
Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
David HumeRead