No one is happy unless he respects himself.

Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.

Force does not constitute right... obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during election of members of parliament; as soon as the members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moment of its freedom, the English people makes such a use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it.

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.

Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.

Each member of the community gives himself to it at the instant of its constitution, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces, including all goods in his possession.