Baron De Montesquieu Quotes

Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.

Honor is unknown in despotic states.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.

A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.

Power should be a check on power.

With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.

This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.

It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.

Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.

When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.

As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.

I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.

I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.

Virtue has needs of limits.

Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.

Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.

Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

If triangles had a god, he would have three sides.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.