Montesquieu Quotes
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
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.
False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
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.
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
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.
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.
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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.
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
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.
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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.
I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
