MONTESQUIEU

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

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

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.

The object of war is victory; that of victory is conquest; and that of conquest preservation.

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.

Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance... the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

Weak minds exaggerate too much the wrong done to the Africans.

Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.

The less men think, the more they talk.

Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?

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

When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.

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

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

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

A man should be mourned at his birth, not at his death.

Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

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.

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.

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