102 Quotes by Montesquieu

The desire for glory is no different from that instinct for preservation that is common to all creatures. It is as if we enhance our being if we can gain a place in the memory of others; it is a new life that we acquire, which becomes as precious to us as the one we received from Heaven.

In vain do we seek tranquility in the desert; temptations are always with us; our passions, represented by the demons, never let us alone: those monsters created by the heart, those illusions produced by the mind, those vain specters that are our errors and our lies always appear before us to seduce us; they attack us even in our fasting or our mortifications, in other words, in our very strength.

History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

Every man is capable of doing good to another, but to contribute to the happiness of an entire society is to become akin to the gods

A truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant stranger as quickly as to his own friend. If men were perfectly virtuous, they wouldn’t have friends.

A person of my acquaintance said: . . .'Study has always been for me the sovereign remedy against life's unpleasantness, since I have never experienced any sorrow that an hour's reading did not eliminate.

A person of my acquaintance said: . . ."Study has always been for me the sovereign remedy against life's unpleasantness, since I have never experienced any sorrow that an hour's reading did not eliminate.

One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.

Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another.