193 Quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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.

To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.

Very good laws may be ill timed.

A rational army would run away.

Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.

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.

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.