Charles de Secondat quotes | Thousands Of Quotes

If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman... because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.

Charles de Secondat

First

Man

Nation

Ruin

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.

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.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

Charles de Secondat

Study

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

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

Charles de Secondat

Wrong

Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?

There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude... we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.

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

There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.

Charles de Secondat