I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.

Baron de Montesquieu

Categorized in : War Spirit Religious

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.

Baron de Montesquieu

umpires liberty law

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Baron de Montesquieu

checks should

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

Baron de Montesquieu

funny-inspirational leadership integrity

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

Baron de Montesquieu

honesty integrity war

We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.

Baron de Montesquieu

education two school

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Baron de Montesquieu

tyrants law names

Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.

Baron de Montesquieu

abuse evil men

In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

Baron de Montesquieu

equality law men

Law should be like death, which spares no one.

Baron de Montesquieu

spares should law

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.

Baron de Montesquieu

tendencies abuse peace

Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.

Baron de Montesquieu

democracies-have government wisdom

The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.

Baron de Montesquieu

succession vain men

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

Baron de Montesquieu

would-be people thinking

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Baron de Montesquieu

philosophical liberty law

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Baron de Montesquieu

abuse-of-power abuse liberty

No tyranny is more cruel than the one practised in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice - when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. And since a tyrant never lacks instruments for his tyranny, Tiberius always found judges ready to condemn as many people as he might suspect.

Baron de Montesquieu

tyrants color law

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.

Baron de Montesquieu

religious war religion

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

Baron de Montesquieu

disposition prejudice reason

Power should be a check on power.

Baron de Montesquieu

good-and-evil checks evil

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

Baron de Montesquieu

comeback insult sexuality