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Quotes from Lettres Persanes — Montesquieu

1689–1755 France

← All quotes by Montesquieu

15 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)

I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

Lettres Persanes (1721)

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)

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.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

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.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that which believed itself in the ascendant.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

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

Lettres Persanes (1721)

History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

In France there are three kinds of professions: the church, the sword, and the long robe. Each hath a sovereign contempt for the other two. For example, a man who ought to be despised only for being a fool is often so because he is a lawyer.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

I write to thee on this subject, [friend], because I am angry at a book which I have just left, which is so large, that it seems to contain universal science, but it hath almost split my head, without teaching me anything.

Lettres Persanes (1721)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Montesquieu (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.