Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
– Charles de Montesquieu
I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
– Charles de Montesquieu
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
– Charles de Montesquieu
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
– Charles de Montesquieu
The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
– Charles de Montesquieu
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
– Charles de Montesquieu
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
– Charles de Montesquieu
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.
– Charles de Montesquieu
To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
– Charles de Montesquieu
We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.
– Charles de Montesquieu
A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.
– Charles de Montesquieu
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.
– Charles de Montesquieu
The love of democracy is that of equality.
– Charles de Montesquieu
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
– Charles de Montesquieu
The less men think, the more they talk.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Peace is a natural effect of trade.
– Charles de Montesquieu
It is not the young people that degenerate they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
– Charles de Montesquieu
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.
– Charles de Montesquieu
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.