193 Quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.

Man is a social animal formed to please in society.

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.

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.

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.