“Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.”

— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. . . .”

— John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1689

“Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

“Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Misshapes the beauteous forms of things;

— We murder to dissect.”

— William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” Lyrical Ballads, 1798

“I thought of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him.”

— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818