Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712 - 1778

J.J. was a thinker. He was also an excellent chess player, a Frenchman and a philosopher, born in Geneva, which is now your Switzerland. At the time of his birth, Geneva was an independent city, protected by France. Geneva became officially Swiss in the year 1814.

Jean-Jacques was for expressing emotion and against suppressing them just for the sake of being polite. He also recommended that we all should get in touch with our conscience a little bit more.
(Conscience = Inner sense of right and wrong)

Pronounce CONSCIENCE

It seems that he felt emotions much stronger than the average bear. No surprise then that he hated social injustice with a vengeance.

JJ's Book The Social Contract.

One of of Jean-Jacques' all-time favorites was Plutarch. He also liked the works of Voltaire, who lived 1694 - 1778. Unfortunately, Voltaire and Rousseau later ended up despising each other.

J.J. Rousseau was one of the first ones who thought that childhood memories could form your personality. He was also the inventor of modern autobiography with his work Confessions.

JJ adopted a systematic study to improve mind and heart (Ben Franklin comes to mind with his self-improvement system).

Rousseau says, "I have undertaken a system of study that I have divided under two principal headings: the first, everything that serves to enlighten the mind and fill it with useful and agreeable knowledge; the second, methods for training the heart in wisdom and virtue." He ordered stacks of books and got started. What a guy, ey.
 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau