Top 77 Montesquieu Quotes

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.

The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

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.

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.

People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

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.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.

We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

False 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.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

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.

The less men think, the more they talk.

We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.

Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

They 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?

There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.

In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

If 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.

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

The less men think, the more they talk.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

We 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.

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.