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.
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
Mankind by their industry, and by the influence of good laws, have rendered the earth more proper for their abode.
There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
In France there are three kinds of professions: the church, the sword, and the long robe. Each hath a sovereign contempt for the other two. For example, a man who ought to be despised only for being a fool is often so because he is a lawyer.
Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
I shall ever repeat it, that mankind are governed not by extremes, but by principals of moderation.
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.
It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.
I would as soon say that religion gives its professors a right to enslave those who dissent from it, in order to render its propagation more easy.
This was the notion that encouraged the ravagers of America in their iniquity. Under the influence of this idea they founded their right of enslaving so many nations; for these robbers, who would absolutely be both robbers and Christians, were superlatively devout.
Louis XIII was extremely uneasy at a law by which all the negroes of his colonies were to be made slaves; but it being strongly urged to him as the readiest means for their conversion, he acquiesced without further scruple.
And yet there is nothing so badly imagined: nature seems to have provided, that the follies of men should be transient, but they by writing books render them permanent. A fool ought to content himself with having wearied those who lived with him: but he is for tormenting future generations; he is desirous that his folly should triumph over oblivion, which he ought to have enjoyed as well as his grave; he is desirous that posterity should be informed that he lived, and that it should be known for ever that he was a fool.
Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
The avarice of nations makes them quarrel for the movables of the whole universe.
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad. It is neither useful to the master nor to the slave; not to the slave, because he can do nothing through a motive of virtue; nor to the master, because by having an unlimited authority over his slaves he insensibly accustoms himself to the want of all moral virtues, and thence becomes fierce, hasty, severe, choleric, voluptuous, and cruel. ... where it is of the utmost importance that human nature should not be debased or dispirited, there ought to be no slavery. In democracies, where they are all upon equality; and in aristocracies, where the laws ought to use their utmost endeavors to procure as great an equality as the nature of the government will permit, slavery is contrary to the spirit of the constitution: it only contributes to give a power and luxury to the citizens which they ought not to have.