One 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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIf 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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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 -
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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 -
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 -
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Democracy 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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU