I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUI have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUPassion makes us feel, but never see clearly.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIn constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEULunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIn the state of nature… all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIt is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUSociety is the union of men and not the men themselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUPolitics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUFriendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEULaws, 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 MONTESQUIEUCertain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUMan is a social animal formed to please in society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIn republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU