• People are born neutral and have the
capability to govern themselves.
People have certain rights that the
government must protect Right to life,
liberty, and property influenced
American Revolution
• Absolute government is necessary to
protect the people from each other
because people are naturally evil.
Favored Monarchy
• Freedom of speech, use of satire to
expose hypocrisy
• Women should have equal rights as
men
• Society makes people evil, people
ought to be free
• Separation of powers, Absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
• “In order to have…liberty, it is
necessary that government be set up
so that one man need not be afraid of
another“
• “The condition of man (in the state of
nature)…is a condition of war of
everyone against everyone.
• “I may not agree with a word you say
but I will defend to the death your right
to say it“
• “Men being…by nature all free, equal
and independent, no one can be put
out of theirs estate and subjected to the
political power of another without his
own consent“
• “…civilized women of the present
century, with a few exceptions, are only
anxious to inspire love, when they
ought to cherish a nobler ambition and
by their abilities and virtues exact
respect.”
• “Man is born free and everywhere he is
in chains“
Name Main Idea Famous Quote
Hobbes
Locke
Voltaire
Montesquieu
Rousseau
Wollstonecraft
Enlightenment Philosophes
