Quote

Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

Baron de Montesquieu

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Baron de Montesquieu
Would
Fain
Torrent
Glide
Carried
River
Gentle
Rivers
Away

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

Image
The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Honor is unknown in despotic states.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
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
I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
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
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
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
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
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
Baron de Montesquieu
Image
If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident
Baron de Montesquieu