You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

The political body, therefore, is also a moral being which has a will; and this general will, which tends always to the conservation and well-being of the whole and of each part of it ... is, for all members of the state ... the rule of what is just or unjust.

The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.

At Genoa, the word Liberty may be read over the front of the prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed.

Liberty is not to be found in any form of government; she is in the heart of the free man; he bears her with him everywhere.