Montesquieu Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms
- January 18, 1689 – February 10, 1755
- French
- Political Philosopher, Jurist, Author of The Spirit of the Laws
Montesquieu, born Charles-Louis de Secondat, was an 18th-century French political philosopher best known for his influential work The Spirit of the Laws (1748), in which he articulated the principle of separation of powers. He argued that dividing government authority among executive, legislative, and judicial branches was essential to prevent tyranny and protect liberty. Montesquieu’s ideas profoundly influenced the framing of modern democratic constitutions, including that of the United States. He also explored how geography, climate, and culture affect laws and governance. While some criticized his generalizations, his legacy endures as a foundational figure in political theory, constitutional design, and Enlightenment thought.
- “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.”
- “Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.”
- “I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.”
- “A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.”
- “Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.”
- “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.”
- “If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.”
- “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.”
- “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. 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.”
- “Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.”
- “It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.”
- “Peace is a natural effect of trade.”
- “The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.”
- “Power ought to serve as a check to power.”
- “A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his 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?”
- “No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.”
- “Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.”
- “Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.”
- “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.”
- “Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.”
- “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.”
- “The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.”
- “Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.”
- “Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.”
- “I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.”
- “Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.”
- “You have to study a great deal to know a little.”
- “I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.”
- “There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
- “Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.”
- “There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.”
- “Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.”
- “Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.”
- “Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?”
- “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.”
- “Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.”
- “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.”
- “The less men think, the more they talk.”
- “It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.”
- “The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.”
- “Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.”
- “There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principles of fear or reason, but from passion.”
- “The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.”
- “An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.”
- “Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.”
- “We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.”
- “To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.”
- “Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.”
- “In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “The severity of the laws prevents their execution.”
- “There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.”
- “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.”
- “Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.”
- “The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.”
- “Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.”
- “Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”
- “Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.”
- “The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.”
- “I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.”
- “Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.”
- “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.”
- “Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.”
- “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 object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.”
- “If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.”
- “Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.”
- “Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.”
- “To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.”