Baron de Montesquieu Quotes

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.

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy, as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness, and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality.

Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.

A rational army would run away.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

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.

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.