When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUTo lend money without interest, is certainly an action laudable and extremely good; but it is obvious, that it is only a counsel of religion, and not a civil law.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
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The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
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If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
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If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman… because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU






