Quote

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Baron de Montesquieu

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Baron de Montesquieu
Liberty
Politics
Liberties
Nations
Miss
Freedom
Missing
May
Nation
Lose
Loses
Century

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

Image
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
There are countries where a man is worth nothing there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
It is not the young people that degenerate they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
Baron de Montesquieu