The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUOne more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU






