They have only inculcated belief in absurdities to men in order to
subdue them.—_Ibid._
The most tolerable of all governments is doubtless the republican, since
that approaches the nearest towards natural equality.—_Idées
Républicaines._
A Republican is ever more attached to his country than a subject to his,
for the same reason that one loves better his own possessions than those
of a master.—_Pensées sur le Gouvernement._
Give too much power to anybody and be sure they will abuse it. Were the
monks of La Trappe spread throughout the world, let them confess
princesses, educate youth, preach and write, and in about ten years they
would be similar to the Jesuits, and it would be necessary to repress
them.—_Mél. Balance Egale_.
What are politics beyond the art of lying a propos?—_Contant D’Orville_.
“Reasons of State” is a phrase invented to serve as excuse for
tyrants.—_Commentaire sur le traité des Délits._
The best government is that where there are the fewest useless
men.—Dial. 4.
Man is born free. The best government is that which most preserves to
each mortal this gift of nature.—_Histoire de Russie_.
To be free, to have only equals, is the true life, the natural life of
man; all other is an unworthy artifice, a poor comedy, where one plays
the rôle of master, the other of slave, this one a parasite, and that
other a pander.—_Dial. 24._
Why is liberty so rare? Because it is the best possession.—_Dict. Phil_.
(“Venise”).
Those who say that all men are equal, say truth if they mean that men
have an equal right to liberty, to the property of their own goods, and
the protection of the laws. They are much deceived if they think that
men should be equal in their employments, since they are not so by their
faculties.—_Essai sur les Mœurs_, i.
Despotism is the punishment of the bad conduct of men. If a community is
mastered by one man or by several, it is plainly because it has not the
courage and ability necessary for self-government.—_Idées
Republic-aines_, 1765.
I do not give myself up to my fellow-citizens without reserve. I do not
give them the power to kill or to rob me by plurality of votes. I submit
to help them, and to be aided, to do justice, and to receive it. No
other agreement.—_Notes on Rousseau’s “Social Contract”_
The Population Question
_The Man of Forty Crowns_: I have heard much talk of population. Were we
to take it into our heads to beget double the number of children we now
do; were our country doubly peopled, so that we had forty millions of
inhabitants instead of twenty, what would happen?
_The Geometrician_: Each would have, instead of forty, but twenty crowns
to live upon; or the land would have to produce the double of what it
now does; or there would be the double of the nation’s industry, or of
gain from foreign countries; or one half of the nation sent to America;
or the one half of the nation should eat the other.—_The Man of Forty
Crowns._
Nature’s Way