Montesquieu (1689–1755,) fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, was a French philosopher and jurist. The first of the great French men of letters connected with the Enlightenment, his major work, The Spirit of Laws, was a leading contribution to political theory.
Born at the Château de la Brede, near Bordeaux, Montesquieu became the counselor of the Parlement of Bordeaux 1714 and its president 1716. He performed the duties of his office faithfully until his poor eyesight hindered him. He first gained renown with the publication of his Lettres Persanes (1721; Persian Letters,) a satire of French society from the viewpoint of two Persian travelers visiting Paris.
Montesquieu’s standing rests chiefly on L’Esprit des lois (1748; The Spirit of Laws, 1750,) a comparative study of political systems in which he championed the separation of judicial, legislative, and executive powers as being most conducive to individual liberty, holding up the English state as a model. He contended that an individual’s liberty needed protection from the arm of power, checking that by another power. Where judicial, executive, and legislative powers were concentrated in the hands of one figure, there could be no individual liberty. His political philosophies were highly influential in Europe in the late 18th century, as they were in the drafting of the American Constitution.
Montesquieu’s other works include Lysimaque (1748) and Arsace et Isménie (1930; (The True History of) Arsace and Isménie,) a romance, and an essay on taste (“Gout”) in the Encyclopédie (1751–80.) A member of the Académie Française from 1728, he died completely blind.
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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Eating, Food
What orators lack in depth, they make up to you in length.
—Montesquieu
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Experience
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Perseverance, Time, Endurance, Success, Time Management, Resolve
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.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Authority
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Freedom
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Greatness
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Friends and Friendship
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
The love of democracy is that of equality.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Democracy
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers.—The less men think the more they talk.
—Montesquieu
Virtue I love, without austerity; pleasure, without effeminacy; and life, without fearing its end.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Virtue
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.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Welfare, Apathy
Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.—We have seen a thousand people esteemed, either for the merit they had not yet attained or for what they no longer possessed.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Reputation
The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: If you would be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Parents
The love of reading enables a man to exchange the wearisome hours of life, which come to everyone, for hours of delight.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Reading
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Reading
Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Law
It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Government
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Government
I never listen to calumnies; because, if they are untrue, I run the risk of being deceived; and if they are true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
—Montesquieu
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Success, Simplicity
We should never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Law
I’ve never know any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Reading, Books
Some men will believe nothing but what they can comprehend; and there are but few things that such are able to comprehend.
—Montesquieu
The censure of those who are opposed to us, is the highest commendation that can be given us.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Censorship
No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
—Montesquieu
Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Taxes
The pious man and the atheist always talk of religion; the one of what he loves, and the other of what he fears.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Religion
The love of country produces good manners; and good manners, love of country.—The less we satisfy our individual passions, the more we leave to our general.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Patriotism
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of the state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state
—Montesquieu
Topics: Government
Whom one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Manners
In the state of nature…all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Equality
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Opportunities, Comparisons, Reality, Happiness
A nation may lose its liberties in a day, and not miss them in a century.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Nation, Freedom, Liberty
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.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Happiness
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Success
Imperfect enjoyment is attended with regret; a surfeit of pleasure with disgust. There is a certain nick of time, a certain medium to be observed, with which few people are acquainted.
—Montesquieu
Topics: Enjoyment
What too many orators want in depth, they give you in length.
—Montesquieu
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