Note. Public liberty can be established only through the sacrifice of all private liberties, without any exception. In this admirable institution, the strong yield part of their strength, the rich part of their riches, the noble part of their nobility to all the other citizens whom they wish to make their equals; and the small, the weak, the poor in their turn yield part of their hopes, and of the nobility, and of the riches, and of the strength that the bounty and inconstancy of ever-changing fortune might give either to them or to their descendants.
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The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I · Book Mode · Diotimos