Life, faculties, production—in other words, individuality, liberty, property—this is man.
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
...the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible
effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.
What is law? What ought it to be? What is its scope; its limits? Logically, at what point do the just powers of the legislator (lawmaker) stop? I do not hesitate to answer: Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle to injustice. In short, law is justice.