Baron de Montesquieu Quotes About Politics
-
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
→ -
No tyranny is more cruel than the one practised in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice - when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. And since a tyrant never lacks instruments for his tyranny, Tiberius always found judges ready to condemn as many people as he might suspect.
→ -
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
→ -
In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
→ -
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
→ -
We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
→ -
When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
→ -
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.
→ -
A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
→
Related Authors
-
Thomas Hobbes Philosopher -
Mary Wollstonecraft Writer -
Adam Smith Philosopher -
Maximilien Robespierre Lawyer -
David Hume Philosopher -
Voltaire Writer -
Immanuel Kant Philosopher -
Cesare Beccaria Philosopher -
Michel de Montaigne Writer -
Denis Diderot Philosopher -
Rene Descartes Philosopher -
John Locke Philosopher -
Thomas Jefferson 3rd U.S. President -
Niccolo Machiavelli Historian -
Jean de La Fontaine Poet -
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosopher -
William Blackstone Jurist -
Jean le Rond d'Alembert Mathematician -
Aristotle Philosopher -
Alexis de Tocqueville Historian