Montesquieu - Government Quotes

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In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.

Montesquieu
Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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

Montesquieu
The corruption of each government almost always begins with that of its principles.

Montesquieu
Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. 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. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?

Montesquieu
The English have taken their idea of political government from the Germans. This fine system was found in the forests.

Montesquieu
Better it is to say that the government most comformable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.

Montesquieu
The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles.

Montesquieu
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.

Montesquieu
It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.

Montesquieu
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.

Montesquieu
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.

Montesquieu