Quotes By Charles De Secondat

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

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

Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.

When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

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.

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.

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.

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

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.