Baron de Montesquieu famous quotes

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Freedom #Missing #Liberty

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

#Success #Knowing #Long

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Teamwork #Men #People

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#School #Two #Parent

What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Fear #Silly #Men

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Umpires #Liberty

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Justice #Protection #Tyranny

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Power #Use #Administration

We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Character #Law #Ideas

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Lying #Passion #Heart

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Peace #Abuse #Tendencies

As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Political #Honor #Would Be

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.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Giving #Slavery

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Slavery #States

Europe is a state with several provinces
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Country #Europe #States

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Real #War #Law

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#War #Different #States

People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#People #Religion #Arguing

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

#Talking #Favors #Wit

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Government #Liberty #Principles

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.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Believe #East #Limits

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.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Moral #Kind #Enough

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Differences #Law #Mind

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Peace #War #Empires

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Government #Three #Republican

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#People #Democracy #Body

Power ought to serve as a check to power.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Power #Checks

Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Reading #Men #Library

The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Divorce #Moments #Given

In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Leadership #Character #Giving

There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Three #Triangles #Mathematics

In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Republican #Latter

The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Time #Busy #Polite

When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Liberty #Enforcement

You have to study a great deal to know a little.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Learning #Littles #Study

It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Government #Needs

The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Powerful #Sick #Ottomans

Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Luxury #Republic #Poverty

Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#People #History

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Law #Humanity

In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Diversity #Movement #Body

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

#Book #Writing #Suffering

Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Order #Citizens #May

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

#Men #Envy #Praise

To lend money without interest, is certainly an action laudable and extremely good; but it is obvious, that it is only a counsel of religion, and not a civil law.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Action #Lending

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

#Law #Relation

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Art #Philosophy #History

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Government #Two #Democracy

We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Two #Magic #Liberty

Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Republic #Politics #Poverty

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Impossible #Maxims

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Thinking #Talking

To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Success #Wise #Succeed

Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Would Be #Kind #Certain

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Want #Manners

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Majority #Deeds

If triangles had a god, he would have three sides.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#God #Three #Triangles

I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Sophisticated #Reason #Enough

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Prejudice #Reason #Disposition

Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Government #Political #Liberty

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

#Ambition #Community #Mind

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Acceptance #Done #Wonderful

Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Courage #Law #Morality

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Favors #May #Given

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Intelligent #World #Blind

It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Adventure #Adventurous #Accomplish

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Tyrants #Luxury #Republic

The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Believe #Vanity #Miracle

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Leadership #Funny Inspirational #Integrity

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Men #Ruins #Firsts

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Thinking #Religion #Gods Will

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Political #Earth

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Religious #War #Religion

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Doors #Doe #Window

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Philosophical #Law #Execution

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Philosophical #Lunch #Paris

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law

There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#War #Civil War #Kingdoms

...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Republic #Corruption

Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Clever #Injustice #Threat

It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Science #Men #Stink

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Country #Freedom #Wells

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Equality #Men #Law

The love of democracy is that of equality.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Equality #Democracy

Very good laws may be ill timed.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #May #Very Good

They who love to inform themselves, are never idle. Though I have no business of consequence to take care of, I am nevertheless continually employed. I spend my life in examining things: I write down in the evening whatever I have remarked, what I have seen, and what I have heard in the day: every thing engages my attention, and every thing excites my wonder: I am like an infant, whose organs, as yet tender, are strongly affected by the slightest objects.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Writing #Attention #Care

Solemnity is the shield of idiots
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Stupidity #Shields #Idiot

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Adventure #Greatness #Empires

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Philosophical #Depth #Public Speaking

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Philosophical #Law #Liberty

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Philosophical #Blood #Kingdoms

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.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Happiness #Laughter #Men

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

#Success #Wise #Philosophical

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Thinking #People #Want

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

#Birthday #People #Age

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Wisdom #Democracy #Apathy

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Law #Names #Tyrants

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
-- Baron de Montesquieu

#Life #Philosophical #Future