Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUNo kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
-
-
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
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 -
I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
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 -
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The spirit of commerce… renders every man willing to live on his own property…& prevents the growth of luxury.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU