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Authors & Writing
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Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Death
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We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Food
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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Fortune
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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 Montesquieu
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Freedom
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Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Friends
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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
-Charles Montesquieu
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God
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If triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Government
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It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
-Charles Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748
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Greatness & Great Things
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It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Happiness
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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 Montesquieu
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If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Law
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
-Charles Montesquieu
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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
-Charles Montesquieu
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The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
-Charles Montesquieu
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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Liberty
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Simplicity
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I have always observed that to succeed in the world a person must seem simple, yet wise.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Speeches (oratory)
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What orators lack in depth, they make up to you in length.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Talent
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This is how I define talent; it is a gift that God has given us in secret, which we reveal without knowing it.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Time
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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Wealth
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Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
-Charles Montesquieu
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Books by and about Charles Montesquieu