Montesquieu Quotes

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

"The political liberty, of the subject, (separation of powers), is a tranquility of mind arising from the opinion each person has of [their] safety. In order to have this liberty. It is requisite the government be so constituted as one [person] need not to be afraid of another."

Baron de Montesquieu,
Spirit of laws
1748

Nature, in her wisdom, seems to have arranged it so that men's stupidity should be ephemeral, and books make them immortal. A fool ought to be content having exacerbated everyone around him, but he insists tormenting future generations.

Knowledge makes men gentle; reason leads to humanity; but prejudices can only eradicate both these dispositions.

If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

Virtue has need of limits.

Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them... They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfil its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.

Aimer à lire, c'est faire un échange des heures d'ennui que l'on doit avoir dans sa vie, contre des heures délicieuses.

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.

Rhedi: I am always afraid that they will eventually succeed in discovering some secret which will provide a quicker way of making men die, and exterminate whole countries and nations.

Usbek: No, if such a fateful invention came to be discovered, it would soon be banned by international law; by the unanimous consent of every country the discovery would be buried.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

Nature repairs everything.

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

My dear Usbek, when women feel, as they lose their attractiveness, that their end is coming in advance, they would like to go backwards to youth again. How could they possibly not attempt to deceive other people? - they make every effort to deceive themselves, and to escape from the most distressing thought we can have.