In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
Baron de MontesquieuThe crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
Baron de MontesquieuA fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
Baron de MontesquieuLove of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
Baron de MontesquieuChristians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.
Baron de Montesquieu