Jean-Jacques Rousseau on controlling one’s bad passions

    Of the passions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed:

All passions are good when one remains their master; all are bad when one lets oneself be subjected to them. . . . It is not within our control to have or not to have passions. But it is within our control to reign over them. All the sentiments we dominate are legitimate; all those which dominate us are criminal. A man is not guilty for loving another’s wife if he keeps this unhappy passion enslaved to the law of duty. (Quoted from Emile: On education, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, translated by Allen Bloom. Basic Books. 1979. p. 455.)

    For a brief biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, click here.