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Montesquieu Quotes
1689–1755 France
Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), also known as Charles de Montesquieu, was a French political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment and is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers.
France Academics Novelists Philosophers Also known as: Baron de Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, Charles de Montesquieu, Montesquieu, Charles de, Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
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41 quotes
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.
Lettres Persanes (1721)
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
One must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
Constant experience shows us that every man who has power is inclined to abuse it; he goes until he finds limits.
Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
Lettres Persanes (1721)
The State owes all its citizens a secure subsistence, food, suitable clothes and a way of life that does not damage their health.
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.
A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.
Lettres Persanes (1721)
An admirable thing is the Christian religion: it seems to have no other end in view than happiness in the next world, and yet it also constitutes our happiness in this one.
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Lettres Persanes (1721)
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
How admirable is that religion which, while it seems to have in view only the felicity of another world, is at the same time the highest happiness of this.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Lettres Persanes (1721)
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
Lettres Persanes (1721)
Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
Lettres Persanes (1721)
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
No kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
Persian Letters (1721)
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