Baron de Montesquieu Quotes

In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.

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.

In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

A prince who loves and fears religion is a lion who stoops to the hand that strokes or to the voice that appeases him. He who fears and hates religion is like the savage beast that growls and bites the chain, which prevents his flying on the passenger. He who has no religion at all is that terrible animal who perceives his liberty only when he tears in pieces, and when he devours.

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

Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.

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.

Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

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

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

[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.

The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it.

Brutes 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.

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.

At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

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.

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

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

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.

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

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.

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

The less men think, the more they talk.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

It is unreasonable ... to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.

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

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.

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.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.

The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury.