Montesquieu quotes
Montesquieu (1689–1755): French philosopher. The library holds 50 quotes by Montesquieu. The 50 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, power, faith, freedom, happiness, friendship
The best-known Montesquieu quotes
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Nature is just towards men. It recompenses them for their sufferings; it renders them laborious, because to the greatest toils it attaches the greatest rewards.
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The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: If you would be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
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The less men think the more they talk.
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Society is the union of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and yet man may remain.
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This is how I define talent; it is a gift God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.
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Unhappy lot of man! Hardly has the mind attained maturity, when the body begins to pine away.
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We wish to be happier than other people; and this is almost always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
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The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
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I have always observed that to succeed in the world a man must seem simple but be wise.
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In the matter of dress people should always keep below their ability.
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The love of country produces good manners, and good manners also love of country. The less we satisfy our particular passions, the more we leave to our general.
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The spirit of moderation should be the spirit of a lawgiver.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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Men extremely happy and men extremely unhappy are alike prone to become hard-hearted.
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
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The manners of the prince conduce as much to liberty as the laws.
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There is no commonwealth so powerful as one in which the laws are observed not from a principle of fear or reason, but passion.
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A legislator should be animated by the spirit of moderation.
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Talent is a gift which God has imparted in secret, and which we reveal without knowing it.
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Wonderful! that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the happiness of this.
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There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
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In constitutional states, liberty is a compensation for heaviness of taxation; in despotic ones, lightness of taxation is a compensation for liberty.
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The love of reading enables a man to exchange the wearisome hours of life, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
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The decay of every government almost always dates from the decay of the principles on which it is founded.
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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was possible for me to do myself.
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Liberty is the right to do what the laws allow; and if a citizen could do what they forbid, it would be no longer liberty, because others would have the same powers.
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Men, who are knaves individually, are in the mass very honourable people.
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Men who are knaves severally are in the mass highly honourable people.
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Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
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If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful.
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It is always adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
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He has more than any other the mind which every one has.
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Happy the people whose annals are blank in History’s book.
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The severity of the laws prevents the execution of them.
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What orators want in depth, they make up to you in length.
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Republics end with luxury; monarchies, with poverty.
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Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
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High people have pleasures, common people have joy.
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Laws should be like death, which spares no one.
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The severity of laws impedes their execution.
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Passions makes us feel but never see clearly.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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The love of democracy is that of equality.
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Public affairs ought to progress quickly or slowly, but the people have always too much action or too little. Sometimes with their hundred thousand arms they will overthrow everything, and sometimes with their hundred thousand feet they will crawl along like insects.
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The citizen may perish and man remain.
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Little gifts keep friendship green.
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Nature is just to men.
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Virtue is necessary to a republic.
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Poverty of soul is irreparable.