Quote

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

Baron de Montesquieu

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Baron de Montesquieu
Possessed
Supreme
Democracy
Called
Politics
Power
Body
People
Nerd

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

Image
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Vitam Impendere Vero (I consecrate my life to truth).
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
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
Image
Europe is a state with several provinces
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
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
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
The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
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
Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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
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