The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUA man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
-
-
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
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 -
Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
In 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 MONTESQUIEU -
The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Vitam Impendere Vero (I consecrate my life to truth).
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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 -
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