A Quote by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Quote Topics

Born Born Free Chains Everywhere Free Greater Indeed Man Masters Others Than Themselves Think Those

Quote Author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau
French - Philosopher
June 28, 1712 - July 2, 1778

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere born free, any more than they are everywhere in chains, unless these be of their own individual making.

Francis Marion Crawford

Their property held them in chains...chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their soul...If they stored up their treasure in heaven, they would not now have an enemy and a thief within their own household...They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.

Cyprian

Abolitionists believe that, as all men are born free, so all who are now held as slaves in this country were born free, and that they are slaves now is the sin, not of those who introduced the race into this country, but of those, and those alone, who now hold them and have held them in slavery from their birth.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Pawns are born free, yet they are everywhere in chains

Rick Kennedy

I blame Rousseau, myself. "Man is born free", indeed. Man is not born free, he is born attached to his mother by a cord and is not capable of looking after himself for at least seven years (seventy in some cases).

Katharine Whitehorn

Lies are the religion of slaves and masters. Truth is the god of the free man.

Maxim Gorky

It isn't those who are taken by force, put in chains, and sold as slaves who are the real slaves; it is those who will accept it, morally and physically.

Ousmane Sembene

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

Herbert Marcuse

Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains.

Friedrich Schiller

How can I set free anyone who doesn't have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom? I think it's a lie - people claim they want to be free - everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that's bullshit! People are terrified to be set free - they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their securityHow can they expect me or anyone else to set them free if they don't really want to be free?

Jim Morrison

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Abraham Lincoln

If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude, but if one's mind is so manipulated and controlled by the oppressor, then there will be nothing the oppressed can do to scare his powerful masters.