The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUVery good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUEach particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUCountries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread… and a thousand other things of the same kind.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThere is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUAs soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEURepublics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThere is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIt is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUEurope is a state with several provinces
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU