The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
Baron de MontesquieuWhen the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
Baron de MontesquieuThus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
Baron de MontesquieuVanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
Baron de MontesquieuThe prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
Baron de MontesquieuBrutes are deprived of the high advantages which we have; but they have some which we have not. They have not our hopes, but theyare without our fears; they are subject like us to death, but without knowing it; even most of them are more attentive than we to self-preservation, and do not make so bad a use of their passions.
Baron de Montesquieu