11 quotes
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
Political Treatise (1677)
If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.
Political Treatise (1677)
Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's ; but, under nature, everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves.
Political Treatise (1677)
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.
Political Treatise (1677)
Slavery, then, and not peace, is furthered by handing the whole authority to one man.
Political Treatise (1677)
He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.
Political Treatise (1677)
I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.
Political Treatise (1677)
I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.
Political Treatise (1677)
Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.
Political Treatise (1677)
We can conceive of various kinds of democracy. But my intention is not to treat of every kind, but of that only, "wherein all, without exception, who owe allegiance to the laws of the country only, and are further independent and of respectable life, have the right of voting in the supreme council and of filling the offices of the dominion."
Political Treatise (1677)
Of a commonwealth, whose subjects are but hindered by terror from taking arms, it should rather be said, that it is free from war, than that it has peace. For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character : for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done. Besides, that commonwealth, whose peace depends on the sluggishness of its subjects, that are led about like sheep, to learn but slavery, may more properly be called a desert than a commonwealth.
Political Treatise (1677)