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.

Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable.

It is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry majority goes in need of necessities.

Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom.

Consolation indiscreetly pressed upon us, when we are suffering undue affliction, only serves to increase our pain, and to render our grief more poignant.

Abstract truth is the eye of reason.

Temperance and labor are the two best physicians of man; labor sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess