1001Philosophers

Jean-Jacques Rousseau vs Voltaire

Rousseau and Voltaire are the two most influential French Enlightenment philosophers, and their public quarrel — over the Lisbon earthquake, the goodness of civilization, and the place of religion — fixed the terms in which much of the Enlightenment is still read.

At a glance

Jean-Jacques RousseauVoltaire
Dates1712 – 17781694 – 1778
NationalityGenevanFrench
EraModernModern
Movements Enlightenment, Social Contract Enlightenment
Profile Jean-Jacques Rousseau → Voltaire →

Where they agree

Both wrote against ecclesiastical authority and for the autonomy of human reason, both treated literary and philosophical work as inseparable, and both engaged the great political questions of the eighteenth century in the language of public conscience.

Where they disagree

Voltaire stands for the Enlightenment confidence that the progress of reason, science, and civilization is liberating; Candide eviscerates Leibnizian optimism but does not abandon faith in human improvement. Rousseau argued the opposite: civilization, with its arts, sciences, and inequalities, has corrupted natural humanity. Where Voltaire defends the cosmopolitan urbane intellect, Rousseau defends the sentimental, the natural, and the local. Their dispute is the prototype of nearly every later argument about modernity.

Representative quotes

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  • “Let's go dance under the elms: Step lively, young lassies. Let's go dance under the elms: Gallants, take up your pipes.”

    Le devin du village (1752)

  • “Le devin du village (1752)”

    Let's go dance under the elms: Step lively, young lassies. Let's go dance under the elms: Gallants, take up your pipes.

  • “All that time is lost which might be better employed.”

    As quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations in Most Frequent Use: Taken Chiefly from the Latin and French, but comprising many from the Greek, Spanish, and Italian Languages, translated into English (1809) by David Evans Macdonnel

Voltaire

  • “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

    Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer.

  • “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”

    Il est dangereux d'avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort.

  • “The best is the enemy of the good.”

    Il est triste que souvent, pour être bon patriote, on soit l'ennemi du reste des hommes.

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