Top 39 Montesquieu Quotes
#1. When the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
Montesquieu
#2. 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.
Montesquieu
#3. 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.
Montesquieu
#4. There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.
Montesquieu
#5. If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
Montesquieu
#6. 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.
Montesquieu
#7. I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
Montesquieu
#8. If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
Montesquieu
#9. The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
Montesquieu
#10. An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
Montesquieu
#12. Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
Montesquieu
#13. A conqueror, I say, can change the course of everything, and muffled tyranny is the first thing which is liable to violence.
Montesquieu
#14. Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Montesquieu
#15. 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.
Montesquieu
#16. If only we wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
Montesquieu
#17. When the savages of Louisiana are desirous of fruit, they cut the tree to the root and gather the fruit. This is an emblem of despotic government.
Montesquieu
#18. I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
Montesquieu
#19. The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
Montesquieu
#20. I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.
Montesquieu
#21. Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Montesquieu
#23. Nothing is a greater obstacle to our progress in knowledge, than a bad performance of a celebrated author; because, before we instruct we must begin with undeceiving.
Montesquieu
#24. History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
Montesquieu
#25. 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.
Montesquieu
#26. I've never known any distress that an hour's reading didn't relieve.
Montesquieu
#27. Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another.
Montesquieu
#28. Every man is capable of doing good to another, but to contribute to the happiness of an entire society is to become akin to the gods
Montesquieu
#29. [245] "In large and populous cities," says the author of the Fable of the Bees, i, p. 133, "they wear clothes above their rank, and, consequently, have the pleasure of being esteemed by a vast majority, not as what they are, but what they appear to be.
Montesquieu
#31. Nature, in her wisdom, seems to have arranged it so that men's stupidity should be ephemeral, and books make them immortal. A fool ought to be content having exacerbated everyone around him, but he insists tormenting future generations.
Montesquieu
#32. The desire for glory is no different from that instinct for preservation that is common to all creatures. It is as if we enhance our being if we can gain a place in the memory of others; it is a new life that we acquire, which becomes as precious to us as the one we received from Heaven.
Montesquieu
#33. 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.
Montesquieu
#34. It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.
Montesquieu
#35. Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
Montesquieu
#36. The right of conquest is not a right. A society can be founded only with the consent of its members. If it is destroyed by conquest, the nation becomes free again; it is not a new society, and if the conquerer tries to create one it will be a dictatorship.
Montesquieu
#37. A truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant stranger as quickly as to his own friend.
If men were perfectly virtuous, they wouldn't have friends.
Montesquieu
#38. A person of my acquaintance said: ...
Study has always been for me the sovereign remedy against life's unpleasantness, since I have never experienced any sorrow that an hour's reading did not eliminate.
Montesquieu
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