On the Social Contract

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

War then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens,3 but as soldiers

The words slave and right contradict each other, and are mutually exclusive

But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones,

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains

men being taken as they are and laws as they might be.

He argues for a democratic, consensual form of government founded on the “general will,” free of gross inequality and arbitrary rule.

Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men