Baron de Montesquieu Quotes

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.

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

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.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody

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.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

Virtue is necessary to a republic.

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.

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.

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.

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.

There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.

The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.

Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.

As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.

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.

Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.

The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.

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.

Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand,the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; and on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, a laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything.

Thus 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.

Power should be a check on power.

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

Honor is unknown in despotic states.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

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

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.

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.

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

Europe is a state with several provinces

Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.

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.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

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

Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

An injustice to one is a threat made to all