When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUI acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Peace is a natural effect of trade.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes that were inexplicable.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Europe is a state with several provinces
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU