Top 157 Quotes & Sayings by Baron de Montesquieu

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

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

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.

Solemnity is the shield of idiots

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

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.

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

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

It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.

There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.

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.

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.

I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.

A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.

When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

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

Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.

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.

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

To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.

Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody

Law should be like death, which spares no one.

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

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.

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

It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.

[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.

I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.

If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

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

Power should be a check on power.

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

No tyranny is more cruel than the one practised in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice - when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. And since a tyrant never lacks instruments for his tyranny, Tiberius always found judges ready to condemn as many people as he might suspect.

There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.

The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.

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

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

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

A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy, as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness, and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality.

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.

Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.

It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.

Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.

Trade is the best cure for prejudice.

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.

The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.

Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.

Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.

An injustice to one is a threat made to all

The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.

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

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

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

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

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