Quotes by Charles de Montesquieu

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The desire for glory is not unlike the self-preservation instinct of all creatures. It seems to us that we increase our being when we can take it to the memory of others.

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We must deserve the praises ourselves, so that we can listen patiently to those brought to us by others.

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We praise our fellow men in proportion to the esteem they hold us.

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All aggrandizement, all strength, all authority, is relative.

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The best way to instill in children the love of the country is for it to exist in the parents as well.

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When the Louisiana savages want to pluck a fruit from a tree, they cut the tree by the root and then pluck the fruit. It's still a kind of despotic government.

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The envious person is his own enemy, because he suffers from an evil of his own making.

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The cruelty of the laws prevents their observance.

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When the character is generally beautiful, it is not a misfortune if some defects are also felt.

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Education gives birth to ideas in us, it has a channel through which ideas pass into our heads. Our education is a factory of ideas.

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In times of savagery, men have no doubts even when the greatest evils are committed, and in the Age of Enlightenment, they tremble even in the presence of the greatest good. They feel the old evil, they see the ways by which they can correct it, but with it, they also see the new evil that arises from this correction.

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Even reason does not always seek abundance, and people always settle more easily in the center than at the extremes.

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Authors are actors.

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People are born virtuous, and justice is an intrinsic quality of them, like existence itself.

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The world of rational beings is by no means so well governed as the physical world, inasmuch as, although it has laws which are by nature unchanging, it does not follow them with the same consistency that the physical world follows its own.

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A woman has only one possibility to be beautiful, but there are a hundred thousand possibilities to be attractive.

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There are truths about which it is not enough to convince someone, because they must be felt; such are the truths of morality.

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Freedom is the right to do whatever the laws allow. The freedom of the individual and the freedom of the citizen do not always coincide.

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The harshest tyranny is that which manifests itself under the shelter of law and under the standard of justice.

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The rose weakens the courage more than any other vice.

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Injustice permitted to one is a threat to all.

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There is no need to achieve by laws what can be achieved by improving morals.

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You have to learn a lot to know even a little.

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You must live in the world - this is the first natural law of man.

"I love peasants and farmers; they are not scholarly enough nor educated enough to tell sophisticated lies."

"Constant idleness should he included in the tortures of hell, but it is, on the contrary, considered to be one of the joys of paradise."

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A dishonest minister does not do the greatest harm by doing his sovereign a disservice and ruining his people; there is something that I think is a thousand times more dangerous than this: that it sets a bad example.

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Citizens hand over part of their wealth to the state so that they can enjoy the rest.

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If we want to succeed in life, pretend to be stupid and be smart.

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If we just wanted to be happy, that would be easy; but we want to be happier than others, and this is almost always difficult, because we think others are happier than they really are.

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The book is a magical talisman.

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Basically, we always judge things according to our own secret desires.

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Religion is the most important guarantor of honesty, so we should never be afraid of a person who lives in the fear of God.

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Let's not make our equals unhappy, and let's make those who depend on us happy.

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There is nothing more humiliating than to think that we have offended even the irreligious.

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People have endless debates about religion; but as if at the same time they were fighting over who kept their religion the least.

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Ours is a strange century: there are many critics, few readers.

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If I had learned something that could be useful to me but harmful to my family, I would have forgotten it; if I find out something that benefits my family but harms my country, I try to get rid of it; if I find out something that benefits my country but harms Europe, or benefits Europe but harms the human race, I reject it like a sin.

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You always have to take things kindly and find the good in them, if there is a way to do it.

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Unnecessary laws weaken necessary ones.

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The difference between man and man is so small that there is no reason to be arrogant.

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Even the greatest people's heads narrow when they gather together, and the more the wise somewhere, the less wisdom there is.

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I admit, history is full of religious wars; but let's be careful: it was not the diversity of religions that caused the wars, but the impatience of the religion that considered itself dominant.

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The papal eye demonstratively testifies that whoever wears it is initiated in all sciences and is buried in profoundly deep readings, so much so that his sight is dimmed by it; any nose that is embellished or burdened by a papal eye can definitely be classified as a scientist's nose.

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Nature, it seems, has wisely made sure that people's follies are ephemeral, but books perpetuate them. A stupid person could get away with boring all those who lived with him to death, but he also wants to torment future generations; and his main aspiration is for stupidity to triumph over oblivion, even though it could have rested in peace in its grave; he definitely wants to let posterity know that he lived and that he was stupid.

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Why doesn't he listen to someone who has nothing new to say in the world?

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Since gunpowder was invented, there is no longer an impregnable fortress, which means (...) that there is no longer any refuge from injustice and violence on this wide earth.

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There are two kinds of people: those who think and those who entertain.

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I agree with most people rather than listen to them.

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People are more likely to do great things than good ones.

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If something would benefit my nation and harm another, I would not recommend it to my sovereign, for I am first a man and secondly a Frenchman; I am necessarily human and accidentally French.

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Until one has read all the old books, one has no right to value the new ones more.

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Things in themselves are neither pure nor impure, I can't imagine any inherent property of the object that would make it either this or that.

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There are two kinds of depravity; one, when the people do not keep the laws; the other is when the laws corrupt the people: this is an incurable disease, because it lies in the medicine itself.

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Those who come up with some new opinion are first called heretics. Every heresy has its name; for those who believe in the idea, this name is a real password.

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Translations are like copper coins: they have the same face value as gold coins, and they circulate more in the hands of the people, but they are still fragile and of little value.

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If it is not important to pass a law, then what is important is not to pass a law.

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Those who love to read replace the hours of boredom that are inevitable in our lives with beautiful hours.

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The really smart person is the one who feels what other people know.

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No one is unhappy if they feel good in their given situation, and if we say of someone that their situation is unfortunate, we are only judging ourselves, i.e. we would be unhappy in their place.

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Not only serious, but also pleasant reading is useful. Because there are times when we need a refreshing rest. Even the scientist gets a holiday for his hard work. Scientific literature also only benefits if it is served pleasantly and tastefully. It's good to write about everything and in every tone.

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A person who reads bad books is like a person who spends his life in bad company.

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I am not writing a recommendation here or asking for patronage for my book; if it's good, they'll read it anyway, if it's bad, I don't really care that they read it.