Montesquieu Quotes

Ce corps a quarante têtes, toutes remplies de figures, de métaphores et d'antithèses; tant de bouches ne parlent que par exclamation;

Самата природа мъдро се погрижва хорските глупости да бъдат преходни, а книгите ги правят безсмъртни.

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

Another much-discussed question is, whether women are intended by nature to be subject to men.“No,” said a very gallant philosopher to me the other day; “nature never dictated any such law.The dominion which we exercise over them is tyrannical; they yield themselves to men only because they are more tender-hearted, and consequently more human and more rational.These advantages, which, had we been reasonable, would, without doubt, have been the cause of their subordination, because we are irrational.

“Now, if it is true that it is a tyrannical power which we have over women, it is none the less true that they exercise over us a natural dominion- that of beauty, which nothing can resist.Our power does not extend to all countries, but that of beauty is universal.Why, then, should we have any privilege?Is it because we are stronger than they?But that would be the height of injustice.We use every possible means to discourage them.Our powers would be found equal if we were educated alike.Try women in those gifts which education has not weakened, and we soon will see which is the abler sex.

Mais, ma soeur, au nom de Dieu, qui nous éclaire, recevez ce livre sacré que je vous porte; c'est le livre de notre législateur Zoroastre; lisez-le sans prévention; recevez dans votre coeur les rayons de lumière qui vous éclaireront en le lisant;

The Jewish religion is an ancient tree, from which have sprung two branches that cover the whole earth: Muhammadanism and Christianity; or rather, it is a mother who bore two daughters who have wounded her in a thousand places:

il faut vivre avec les hommes tels qu ils sont : les gens qu on dit etre de si bonne compagnie ne sont souvent que ceux dont les vices sont plus raffines ; et peut-etre en est-il comme des poisons, dont les plus subtils sont aussi les plus dangereux.

Nature repairs everything.

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

One must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.

For myself, I would rather not write history than write it for the purpose of following the prejudices and passions of the times.

Here, someone makes the Capetians descend from the Merovingians; there, someone else has it that the name very Christian has always been applied to the {French} princes.

They don't form a system after reading history; they begin with the system and then search for the proofs.

Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.

La raillerie est un discours en faveur de son esprit contre son bon naturel.

Solemnity is the shield of idiots