There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.

The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. for when this reason ceased, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it.

Free men have arms; slaves do not.

Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.

The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.

Every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.