The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying ‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ‘Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and the earth itself belongs to no one!”

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.