Quotes by Charles de Montesquieu

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

Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed.

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

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

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

There should be weeping at a mans birth, not at his death.

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

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

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.

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

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

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

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

I have never known any distress that an hours reading did not relieve.

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

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

Peace is a natural effect of trade.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

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

The less men think, the more they talk.