# Quote — Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

> Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of political subtleties. Men who are upright and simple are difficult to deceive because of their simplicity; lures and ingenious pretexts fail to impose upon them, and they are not even subtle enough to be dupes. When, among the happiest people in the world, bands of peasants are seen regulating affairs of State under an oak, and always acting wisely, can we help scorning the ingenious methods of other nations, which make themselves illustrious and wretched with so much art and mystery?

- 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/peace-unity-and

## 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)