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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

When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Degrees Government
I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hate Running Thinking
Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disappointment Reading Sovereign
When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Long Luxury
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Name Tyrant
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Lunch Paris Philosophical
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Given May
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Power Should
Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Liberty Political
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Manners Want
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Honesty Integrity War
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Poverty Republic
A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Feels Intelligent Men
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

Powerful Sick
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Ought Power
Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Clever Injustice Threat
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good
Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Overt Punish Undertake
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Republic Virtue
A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Speak Writing
The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Crime People Progress
In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Republic
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Freedom Wells
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

Another Execute Impossible Maxims
There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Example Law Morality
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

Fear Men Silly
It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Defense Men Reason

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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