Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.

In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

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

By marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage.

So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.