Charles de Montesquieu Quotes
The love of democracy is that of equality.
A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
The honor of the conquest is rated by the difficulty.
The avarice of nations makes them quarrel for the movables of the whole universe.
Very good laws may be ill timed.
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
If triangles were tomake to themselves gods, they would give them three sides.
The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
The culture of lands requires the use of money.
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
The government is like all things in the world to preserve it, we must love it.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.
There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
