What does this quote mean?

“Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice.”

The social metaphor makes justice structurally essential: Smith argues that a community may survive limited generosity but not continual mutual injury.

Source note: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part II, Section II, Chapter III; the sentence contrasts justice as society’s foundation with beneficence as its ornament.

“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”

Paine makes rights reciprocal: claiming a right for oneself entails recognizing and defending the same right in others.

Source note: Rights of Man, Part I; represented through Moncure Daniel Conway’s public-domain Project Gutenberg collection.

“Society in equality is its normal state.”

Mill contrasts relations organized around command and obedience with equal association, presenting equality as the normal direction of an improving society.

Source note: The Subjection of Women, discussion of marriage and moral cultivation; the sentence follows Mill’s contrast between older command-and-obedience relations and society among equals.

“Great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government.”

Paine argues that everyday social order also grows from mutual dependence, custom, exchange, and cooperation rather than being created entirely by government.

Source note: Rights of Man, Part II; the surrounding passage attributes much ordinary social coordination to society itself.

“I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”

Paine’s profession of faith combines deistic belief with an ethical emphasis on equality, justice, mercy, and the practical happiness of other people.

Source note: The Age of Reason, Part I, Chapter I, “The Author’s Profession of Faith”; represented from the Conway Project Gutenberg edition.

“Then we must do no wrong?”

The brief question tests whether the previously accepted principle against wrongdoing still holds when obedience to it becomes personally costly.

Source note: Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates is testing the moral premises that will govern his decision about escaping prison.