Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men.
In everything, there is a limit beyond which we cannot go.
Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.
To live is not to breathe, but to act.
The general will is always right, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened.
Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
The greatest proof of our intellect is our ability to perceive our own limitations.
It is not the criminal things that are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and shameful things.
The love of democracy is that of equality.
The person who is slowest in making a promise is the most faithful in performance of it.
We are all bound by the laws of our own natures.
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world; everything degenerates in the hands of man.
The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
Man is so naturally good that when he does evil it is against his will.
To be sane in a world of madmen is in itself madness.
Freedom can only be given to those who desire it.
The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine,' and found people na?ve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.