I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

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

An intelligent being, is the active principle of all things. One must have renounced all common sense to doubt it, and it is a waste of time to try to prove such self evident truth.

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.