Charles de Montesquieu (1689 – 1755)
Also known as Charles de Montesquieu, was a French political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment and is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers.
There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
Government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another.
Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
Very good laws may be ill timed.
The first Greeks were all pirates.
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
You have to study a great deal to know a little.
Nothing is a greater obstacle to our progress in knowledge, then a bad performance of a celebrated author; because, before we instruct we must begin with undeceiving.
The compass opened, if I may so express myself, the universe.
The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfill its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
At our coming into the world, we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
The culture of lands requires the use of money.
[Britain is] a nation that may be justly called a republic, disguised under the form of a monarchy.
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced wars; it is the intolerant spirit animating that which believed itself in the ascendant.