The phrase "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" was said by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th-century Genevan philosopher. It is the opening line of his 1762 work, "The Social Contract," where Rousseau discusses the tension between natural freedom and the social and political constraints imposed by society. He argued that humans are naturally free but become constrained by societal conventions and political authority, which form metaphorical "chains." Rousseau's idea was to explore how society could balance individual freedom with the collective good.
