“No society can work unless its members feel responsibilities as well as rights.”

“For the civil government can give no new right to the church, nor the church to the civil government. So that, whether the magistrate join himself to any church, or separate from it, the church remains always as it was before — a free and voluntary society. It neither requires the power of the sword by the magistrate’s coming to it, nor does it lose the right of instruction and excommunication by his going from it. This is the fundamental and immutable right of a spontaneous society — that it has power to remove any of its members who transgress the rules of its institution; but it cannot, by the accession of any new members, acquire any right of jurisdiction over those that are not joined with it.”

“Society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups.”

“The object of a weapon was to assist weakness to cope with strength…I do not think any government has the right, though they may very well have the power, to deprive people for whom they are responsible of the right to defend themselves…however, unless there is not only a right but also a fundamental willingness amongst the people to defend themselves no police force, however large, can do it.”

“A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!”

“If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”