Quotes by Charles de Montesquieu

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

Charles de Montesquieu

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Charles de Montesquieu

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

Charles de Montesquieu

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Charles de Montesquieu

We should weep for men at their birth, not at their death.

Charles de Montesquieu

Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.

Charles de Montesquieu

There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.

Charles de Montesquieu

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

Charles de Montesquieu

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

Charles de Montesquieu

The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.

Charles de Montesquieu

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

Charles de Montesquieu

I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.

Charles de Montesquieu

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.

Charles de Montesquieu

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

Charles de Montesquieu

If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.

Charles de Montesquieu

Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.

Charles de Montesquieu

If triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.

Charles de Montesquieu

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

Charles de Montesquieu

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

Charles de Montesquieu

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.

Charles de Montesquieu