Quote

In republican governments, men are all equal equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything in the latter, because they are nothing.

Baron de Montesquieu

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Baron de Montesquieu
Also
Government
Despotic
Everything
Governments
Nothing
Latter
Men
Former
Republican
Equal
Politics

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

Image
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
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
I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
Baron de Montesquieu