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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Contributed by: Newell
  • 1. Which famous work did Rousseau write that begins with the line 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'?
A) Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men
B) The Social Contract
C) Confessions
D) Emile, or On Education
  • 2. Rousseau's ideas greatly influenced which political movement?
A) Chinese Communist Revolution
B) American Revolution
C) Russian Revolution
D) French Revolution
  • 3. According to Rousseau's philosophy, sovereignty should reside in which entity?
A) The Monarch
B) The Aristocracy
C) The General Will
D) The People
  • 4. Rousseau believed that inequality arose with the establishment of what?
A) Political Parties
B) Private Property
C) Educational Systems
D) Religious Institutions
  • 5. What term did Rousseau use to describe the collective will that aims at the common good?
A) General Will
B) Individual Will
C) Majority Rule
D) Popular Will
  • 6. Which writer and philosopher was a contemporary of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
A) Voltaire
B) Descartes
C) Locke
D) Kant
  • 7. Rousseau had a significant influence on which later Romantic poet?
A) William Wordsworth
B) Percy Bysshe Shelley
C) John Keats
D) Lord Byron
  • 8. Rousseau's work 'Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men' is also known as what?
A) First Discourse
B) Political Discourse
C) Second Discourse
D) Social Discourse
  • 9. Rousseau argued that children should be educated according to their what?
A) Gender
B) Nature
C) Parents' Will
D) Social Class
  • 10. What was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's full name?
A) Jean Jacques Rousseau
B) Jean-Jacques Rousseau
C) Jacques Rousseau
D) John James Rousseau
  • 11. In which city was Jean-Jacques Rousseau born?
A) Geneva
B) Turin
C) Bern
D) Paris
  • 12. What religious background did Geneva have during Rousseau's time?
A) Huguenot republic and the seat of Calvinism
B) Catholic majority
C) Protestant minority
D) Secular state
  • 13. What profession did Rousseau's father, Isaac, follow?
A) Watchmaking
B) Law
C) Farming
D) Teaching
  • 14. How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau describe his birth?
A) An uneventful birth
B) Almost dying, they had little hope of saving me
C) A joyous occasion for the family
D) A difficult but successful delivery
  • 15. What was Rousseau's mother's name?
A) Anne Rousseau
B) Elisabeth Rousseau
C) Marie Rousseau
D) Suzanne Bernard Rousseau
  • 16. Why did Isaac Rousseau face political difficulty in 1699?
A) He was accused of theft
B) He spoke against the government
C) He refused to pay taxes
D) He entered a quarrel with visiting English officers
  • 17. What genre did Rousseau's father use to encourage his love for reading?
A) Philosophical treatises
B) Romances (adventure stories)
C) Historical texts
D) Scientific journals
  • 18. Which ancient work did Rousseau particularly enjoy?
A) Homer's Iliad
B) Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
C) Virgil's Aeneid
D) Ovid's Metamorphoses
  • 19. What was Rousseau's reaction to local militias?
A) He saw them as the embodiment of popular spirit in opposition to rulers' armies
B) He viewed them as oppressive
C) He thought they were poorly organized
D) He believed they were unnecessary
  • 20. At what age did Rousseau run away from Geneva?
A) 17
B) 15
C) 18
D) 13
  • 21. Who introduced Rousseau to Françoise-Louise de Warens?
A) A fellow student
B) A Protestant minister
C) His uncle
D) A Roman Catholic priest
  • 22. What was the main reason for Rousseau's conversion to Catholicism?
A) Pressure from peers
B) Reaction to Calvinism's insistence on total depravity of man
C) Influence from his father
D) Desire for social status
  • 23. What did Rousseau do after converting to Catholicism?
A) He gave up his Genevan citizenship
B) He started a business
C) He moved to England
D) He became a priest
  • 24. How did Rousseau support himself during his travels?
A) Through inheritance
B) By selling paintings
C) As a servant, secretary, and tutor
D) By farming
  • 25. Who was one of Rousseau's notable students?
A) Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti
B) Diderot
C) Montesquieu
D) Voltaire
  • 26. What did Rousseau call Françoise-Louise de Warens?
A) 'Maîtresse'
B) 'Maman'
C) 'Amie'
D) 'Madame'
  • 27. Who did Rousseau befriend in Paris that year he presented his musical notation system?
A) Voltaire
B) Jean-Baptiste Lully
C) A member of the Académie des Sciences
D) Denis Diderot
  • 28. What did Rousseau develop a passion for during his time in Venice?
A) Venetian architecture
B) French literature
C) Italian music, particularly opera
D) Philosophical debates
  • 29. Who did Jean-Jacques Rousseau become lovers with upon returning to Paris?
A) Madame de Francueil
B) Sophie d'Houdetot
C) Thérèse Levasseur
D) Mme. d'Épinay
  • 30. What profession did Thérèse Levasseur have?
A) Cook
B) Nurse
C) Teacher
D) Seamstress
  • 31. What was the subject of Rousseau's famous opera performed for King Louis XV?
A) Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
B) Le devin du village (The Village Soothsayer)
C) Du Contrat Social
D) La serva padrona
  • 32. What did Rousseau refuse from King Louis XV?
A) A title of nobility
B) An invitation to the court
C) A position as a royal tutor
D) A lifelong pension
  • 33. What was the main theme of Rousseau's 'Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men'?
A) Religious belief
B) Music theory
C) Political economy
D) Inequality among men
  • 34. Which novel by Rousseau was inspired by his relationship with Sophie d'Houdetot?
A) Émile, or On Education
B) Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse
C) Du Contrat Social
D) Confessions
  • 35. Who did Rousseau criticize for their shallow atheism?
A) Genevan citizens
B) Calvinists
C) Italian musicians
D) Encyclopédistes
  • 36. What genre is 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse'?
A) Epistolary novel
B) Opera libretto
C) Political treatise
D) Autobiography
  • 37. What was the outcome of Rousseau's inquiries about his son?
A) His son became wealthy
B) His son rejected him
C) No record could be found
D) He discovered his son had become a scholar
  • 38. What was the title of the work by Rousseau that outraged the French parliament?
A) Confessions
B) Émile
C) The Social Contract
D) Discourse on Inequality
  • 39. Which city did Rousseau flee to after being issued an arrest order by the French parliament?
A) England
B) Germany
C) Switzerland
D) Italy
  • 40. What did Frederick the Great send Rousseau as a form of aid?
A) An invitation to his court
B) A letter of recommendation
C) A hundred crowns
D) A personal visit
  • 41. How many stages of childhood development did Rousseau describe?
A) Five
B) Two
C) Four
D) Three
  • 42. Which philosopher did Rousseau differ from in his view on human nature?
A) Montesquieu
B) Malebranche
C) Spinoza
D) Diderot
  • 43. What was the nature of Rousseau's marriage ceremony with Thérèse?
A) Religious ceremony
B) Private affair
C) Faux civil ceremony
D) Public celebration
  • 44. How did Frederick the Great describe Rousseau's mind in his letter?
A) Genius
B) Illogical
C) Ordinary
D) Logical
  • 45. Under what alias did Rousseau marry Thérèse in a faux civil ceremony?
A) Conti
B) Mirabeau
C) Renou
D) Voltaire
  • 46. Who included Hume's version of the quarrel in his Correspondance littéraire?
A) Voltaire
B) Grimm
C) Diderot
D) Horace Walpole
  • 47. Where did Rousseau go after leaving Île de St.-Pierre?
A) Strasbourg
B) Neuchâtel
C) London
D) Paris
  • 48. What did Frederick the Great think Rousseau was born to be?
A) A famous anchorite, or desert father
B) A playwright
C) A philosopher king
D) A military leader
  • 49. Who stopped Rousseau's group readings of his Confessions?
A) Horace Coignet
B) Voltaire
C) The Prince of Conti
D) Madame d'Épinay
  • 50. Who recorded private discussions with Rousseau in December 1764?
A) Voltaire
B) Hume
C) Diderot
D) James Boswell
  • 51. What was the name of Rousseau's first opera?
A) Daphnis et Chloé
B) Pygmalion
C) Les Muses galantes
D) Le Devin du village
  • 52. Which philosopher believed Rousseau contradicted himself concerning human nature and the need for philosophers?
A) Frédéric Bastiat
B) Voltaire
C) Benjamin Constant
D) Jean-Baptiste Blanchard
  • 53. What was the primary purpose of Horace Walpole's letter?
A) An official diplomatic correspondence
B) A serious critique of Rousseau
C) A literary tribute to Frederick the Great
D) A playful hoax
  • 54. Which movement's founder criticized Rousseau for 'sentimental humanitarianism'?
A) Enlightenment
B) Realism
C) New Humanism
D) Romanticism
  • 55. Who was the political philosopher that identified Rousseau's notion of sovereignty with the general will?
A) Benjamin Constant
B) Edmund Burke
C) Hannah Arendt
D) Frédéric Bastiat
  • 56. Which institution rejected Rousseau's musical notation invention but praised his efforts?
A) The Paris Conservatory
B) The Académie des Sciences
C) The Sorbonne
D) The Royal Academy of Music
  • 57. Which principle did Rousseau argue for in music, prioritizing melody over harmony?
A) Dynamics must have priority over harmony.
B) Harmony must have priority over melody.
C) Rhythm must have priority over melody.
D) Melody must have priority over harmony.
  • 58. What method does Rousseau advocate for teaching children right and wrong?
A) Strict discipline
B) Physical punishment
C) Natural consequences
D) Reward systems
  • 59. Who criticized Rousseau for allegedly believing that everything should give way to collective will?
A) Benjamin Constant
B) Jacques Barzun
C) Frédéric Bastiat
D) Edmund Burke
  • 60. Who composed the hoax letter attributed to Frederick the Great?
A) David Hume
B) Denis Diderot
C) Jean-Jacques Rousseau
D) Horace Walpole
  • 61. Where did Rousseau and his companions stay for two nights during their journey to Britain?
A) Dover
B) Chiswick
C) Wootton Hall
D) Calais
  • 62. Which Russian writer carried around a medallion with Rousseau's portrait?
A) Pushkin
B) Tolstoy
C) Dostoevsky
D) Chekhov
  • 63. What did Martinet exclaim upon seeing stones on Rousseau's balcony?
A) "We must arrest him immediately!"
B) "Let us remove these stones."
C) "This is an outrage!"
D) "My God, it's a quarry!"
  • 64. Where did Jean-Jacques Rousseau live from 1762 to 1765?
A) Île de St.-Pierre
B) Môtiers
C) Strasbourg
D) Paris
  • 65. Who invited Rousseau to live at his château in Ermenonville in 1778?
A) Jean-Jacques Hume
B) Marquis Girardin
C) Voltaire
D) King Louis XVI
  • 66. What does 'pitié' refer to in Rousseau's philosophy?
A) Self-preservation instinct
B) Moral obligations
C) Vanity or amour-propre
D) Empathy for one's species
  • 67. Who admired Rousseau's sincerity despite his criticisms?
A) Voltaire
B) Carlyle
C) Diderot
D) Herder
  • 68. Which philosopher critiqued Rousseau's ideas in 'Reflections on the Revolution in France'?
A) Voltaire
B) Benjamin Constant
C) Edmund Burke
D) Jean-Baptiste Blanchard
  • 69. Which American revolutionary figure was influenced by Rousseau's 'Social Contract'?
A) James Madison
B) Thomas Jefferson
C) George Washington
D) Noah Webster
  • 70. What form of government does Rousseau approve for a city-state?
A) Monarchical government
B) Oligarchic government
C) Theocratic government
D) Republican government
  • 71. What does the term 'amour de soi' refer to in Rousseau's philosophy?
A) Vanity or amour-propre
B) Empathy for others
C) Self-preservation instinct
D) Moral obligations
  • 72. What was Rousseau's reaction after the dispute became public?
A) Retired to solitude
B) Published his own version immediately
C) Maintained a public silence
D) Started writing The Social Contract
  • 73. What did Rousseau inspire the revolutionaries to introduce as a new official civil religion in France?
A) Atheism
B) Protestantism
C) Deism
D) Catholicism
  • 74. What did Rousseau's friend Corancez describe about him after the accident?
A) Complete recovery from injuries
B) Immediate return to health
C) Symptoms indicating epileptic seizures
D) Development of a new philosophical theory
  • 75. Which German writer regarded Rousseau as his 'guide'?
A) Schiller
B) Herder
C) Goethe
D) Kant
  • 76. On what date did Jean-Jacques Rousseau reenter France despite an arrest warrant against him?
A) 29 January 1768
B) 21 June 1767
C) 22 May 1767
D) 30 August 1768
  • 77. Who was the aristocratic youth educated in locksmithing, as per Rousseau's ideals?
A) King George III
B) Frederick the Great
C) Napoleon Bonaparte
D) Louis XVI
  • 78. Who did Rousseau argue with over the superiority of Italian music?
A) Ludwig van Beethoven
B) Christoph Willibald Gluck
C) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
D) Jean-Philippe Rameau
  • 79. On what date did Grimm include the hoax letter in his 'Correspondance littéraire'?
A) 16 February 1766
B) 31 December 1765
C) 1 December 1765
D) 1 January 1766
  • 80. Why did Rousseau believe France could not meet his criterion of an ideal state?
A) Because it was too big
B) Because it had a strong monarchy
C) Because it was economically unstable
D) Because it lacked natural resources
  • 81. Which historian suggests that Rousseau is both a critic and a thinker of commerce?
A) Joseph Schumpeter
B) Ryan Hanley
C) Istvan Hont
D) Hansong Li
  • 82. How did Frederick the Great describe Rousseau's letter to him?
A) Indifferent
B) Complimentary
C) A scolding
D) Inspirational
  • 83. Where did Rousseau and Thérèse live after leaving Lyon for Paris in June 1770?
A) Amiens
B) Trie
C) Rue Platrière
D) Bourgoin
  • 84. Who was Rousseau's leading Catholic opponent who disagreed with his ideas on female education?
A) Edmund Burke
B) Voltaire
C) Benjamin Constant
D) Jean-Baptiste Blanchard
  • 85. What skill does Rousseau recommend young adults learn to keep them out of trouble?
A) Theology
B) Medicine
C) Carpentry
D) Law
  • 86. Which philosopher did Rousseau criticize for asserting that man is naturally wicked?
A) Montesquieu
B) Thomas Hobbes
C) Samuel von Pufendorf
D) John Locke
  • 87. What event occurred around midnight of 6–7 September 1765?
A) A fire broke out in Rousseau's residence.
B) Rousseau moved to Île de St.-Pierre.
C) Stones were thrown at Rousseau's house, shattering some windows.
D) Rousseau was arrested by the local authorities.
  • 88. Which animal caused Rousseau to suffer a concussion and neurological damage?
A) Horse
B) Cat
C) Wolf
D) Great Dane
  • 89. What did Rousseau play at a concert in the château on his last day?
A) Clair de Lune by Debussy
B) Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven
C) The Four Seasons by Vivaldi
D) Willow Song from Othello
  • 90. In what year were Rousseau's remains moved to the Panthéon?
A) 1815
B) 1794
C) 1789
D) 1804
  • 91. What model of family did Rousseau anticipate with his educational philosophy?
A) The extended family
B) The bourgeois nuclear family
C) Monastic life
D) Communal living
  • 92. According to Rousseau, where should a child be raised for a more natural education?
A) The city
B) In an urban center
C) The countryside
D) In a boarding school
  • 93. Which feminist criticized Rousseau for confining women to the domestic sphere?
A) Mary Wollstonecraft
B) Simone de Beauvoir
C) Betty Friedan
D) Virginia Woolf
  • 94. What style of notation did Rousseau develop that involved reading music in alternating directions?
A) Cipher notation
B) Tablature
C) Boustrophedon notation
D) Staff notation
  • 95. When were Rousseau's Confessions finally published?
A) 1776
B) 1765
C) 1782
D) 1770
  • 96. Which educator's theories have significant points in common with Rousseau's?
A) Plato
B) Socrates
C) Maria Montessori
D) Aristotle
  • 97. Which French political theorist blamed Rousseau for 'Romantisme et Révolution'?
A) Benjamin Constant
B) Edmund Burke
C) Frédéric Bastiat
D) Charles Maurras
  • 98. According to Rousseau, what was necessary for humans to change their nature?
A) Social institutions
B) Moral significance
C) Natural instincts
D) Free choice
  • 99. Which religion did Jean-Jacques Rousseau convert to early in life?
A) Protestantism
B) Methodism
C) Calvinism
D) Catholicism
  • 100. Who invited Rousseau to England?
A) Voltaire
B) The Prince of Conti
C) Hume
D) Diderot
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