The word ‘slavery’ and ‘right’ are contradictory, they cancel each other out. Whether as between one man and another, or between one man and a whole people, it would always be absurd to say: "I hereby make a covenant with you which is wholly at your expense and wholly to my advantage; I will respect it so long as I please and you shall respect it as long as I wish.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

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.

All through life a man has need of a counsellor and guide.

As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.

The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.

Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.