# Quote — Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

> "In truth," says Machiavelli, "there has never been, in any country, an extraordinary legislator who has not had recourse to God; for otherwise his laws would not have been accepted: there are, in fact, many useful truths of which a wise man may have knowledge without their having in themselves such clear reasons for their being so as to be able to convince others".

- Author: [Jean Jacques Rousseau](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau.md)
- Book: [The Social Contract](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-social-contract.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-social-contract/in-truth-says

## More from this book

> Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-social-contract/man-is-born.md)

> The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-social-contract/the-body-politic.md)

> At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jean-jacques-rousseau/the-social-contract/at-genoa-the.md)