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4046 results in Texts in political thought

Page 27 of 203

  • [437]Book IV

  • Edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch, Wesleyan University, Connecticut
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Book:
    Rousseau: <I>The Social Contract</I> and Other Later Political Writings
    Published online:
    20 December 2018
    Print publication:
    08 November 2018, pp 124-155

  • Summary

    So long as a number of men united consider themselves as a single body, they have but a single will regarding the common preservation and the general welfare. Then all the springs of the State are vigorous and simple, its maxims are clear and luminous, it has no confused, contradictory interests, the common good is everywhere fully evident and requires only good sense to be perceived. Peace, unity, equality are enemies of political subtleties. Upright and simple men are difficult to deceive because of their simplicity, they are not taken in by sham and special pleading; they are not even clever enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people in the world, troops of peasants are seen attending to affairs of State beneath an oak and always acting wisely, can one help feeling contempt for the refinements of the other nations that make themselves illustrious and miserable with so much art and mysteries?

  • [OC IV, 1133]Letter to M. de Franquières

  • from Selected Letters
  • Edited and translated by Victor Gourevitch, Wesleyan University, Connecticut
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Book:
    Rousseau: <I>The Social Contract</I> and Other Later Political Writings
    Published online:
    20 December 2018
    Print publication:
    08 November 2018, pp 277-290

  • Summary

    Here it is, Sir, this wretched chatter for which my humbled amour propre made you wait such a long time, because I failed to sense that a much nobler amour propre should have taught me to overcome the first. It does not much matter that my rambling might strike you as wretched, so long as I am satisfied with the sentiment which dictated it to me. As soon as my improved state restored some of my strength, I took the occasion to re-read and send it to you. If you have the courage to go on to the end, I ask you to be so kind and return it to me, without telling me anything of what you may have thought about it, and which I understand in any event. I greet you, Sir, and embrace you wholeheartedly.

Page 27 of 203