Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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
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It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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 -
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
In 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 -
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
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 -
We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU