[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may justly expect from him, unless we know what he is, why he is, and by whom he is made to be what he is.... I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what, and to whom; nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded; nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the original right of the commander, which is the great arcanum.

Many things are unknown to the wisest, and the best men can never wholly divest themselves of passions and affections... nothing can or ought to be permanent but that which is perfect.

The only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of and protection; and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety.

If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases.

I will believe in the right of one man to govern a nation despotically when I find a man born unto the world with boots and spurs, and a nation with saddles on their backs.

Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent or by force.