Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUTalent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIn constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUSociety is the union of men and not the men themselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUI have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUWe must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUVanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThey who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUI like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUFalse happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIt is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThere is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUDo you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUOne 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 MONTESQUIEUChristianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU