Q0062

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau
School Enlightenment
Source The Social Contract, Book I, Ch. 1
Theme Freedom
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Social Contract, Book I, Ch. 1, within the tradition of Enlightenment. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of freedom, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (n.d.). Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0062

MLA: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0062.

Chicago: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. “Man is born free, and everywhere he is….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0062.

Same thinker

More from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  1. Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.
  2. To find a form of association…by which each, uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself, and remains as free as before.
  3. The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, thought of saying 'This is mine'…was the true founder of civil society.
  4. Conscience! Conscience! divine instinct, immortal and heavenly voice.

All quotations by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Same theme

More on freedom

  1. Extreme freedom seems to change into nothing but extreme slavery.
  2. Of things, some are in our power, and some are not.
  3. It is not things that disturb people, but their judgments about things.
  4. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  5. If you are distressed by anything external, it is not the thing itself that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it.

Browse the freedom theme