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Quotes from The Commonwealth of Oceana — James Harrington

1611–1677 England

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Again, if the liberty of a man consists in the empire of his reason, the absence whereof would betray him to the bondage of his passions, then the liberty of a commonwealth consists in the empire of her laws, the absence whereof would betray her to the lust of tyrants. And these I conceive to be the principles upon which Aristotle and Livy (injuriously accused by Leviathan for not writing out of nature) have grounded their assertion, "that a commonwealth is an empire of laws and not of men."

The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: James Harrington (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.