The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUDemocracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
-
-
Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
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 -
In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
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 -
The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Europe is a state with several provinces
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU






