“ When the citizens are greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous, and love ease more than liberty, they do not long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the government; and thus, as the resisting force incessantly grows, the sovereign authority ends by disappearing, and most cities fall and perish before their time. ”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762). copy citation
| Author | Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
|---|---|
| Source | The Social Contract |
| Topic | government authority |
| Date | 1762 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | Of the Social Contract, or Principles of Political Law, Book III |
| Note | Translated by George Douglas Howard Cole |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Social_Contract/Book_III |
Context
“and these assemblies of the people, which are the aegis of the body politic and the curb on the government, have at all times been the horror of rulers: who therefore never spare pains, objections, difficulties, and promises, to stop the citizens from having them. When the citizens are greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous, and love ease more than liberty, they do not long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the government; and thus, as the resisting force incessantly grows, the sovereign authority ends by disappearing, and most cities fall and perish before their time.
But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there sometimes intervenes a mean power of which something must be said.
15. Deputies or Representatives [edit]
AS soon as public service ceases to be the chief business of the citizens, and they would rather serve with their money than with their persons, the State is not far from its fall.”
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