Montesquieu Quotes

• Jefferson, Madison and many others taught that complex laws and codes were sure signs of oppression. They agreed with Montesquieu, Lock and Hume and that laws must be simple....and indeed that the entire legal code must be simple enough that every citizen knows the entire law. If a person doesn't know the law....he shouldn't be held liable for breaking it or freedom is greatly reduced.

  Oliver DeMille

  Simple, Law, Locks

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• Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Book, Would Be, Speech

  "The Philosophy of Paine" by Thomas A. Edison, June 7, 1925.

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• The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation. His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.

  Joseph Joubert

  Reflection, Light, Wings

  Joseph Joubert (1896). "Pensées de Joubert"

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• [Montesquieu] lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion, and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself.

  James Madison

  Errors, Glimpse, Veils

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.474

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• Montesquieu had the style of a genius; Buffon, the genius of style.

  Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm

  Style, Genius, Buffon

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• [John] Adams identified himself with the political theories of [James] Harrington, [John] Locke, and [Charles-Louis] Montesquieu, whose ideas of constitutionalism, he believed, were applicable to all peoples everywhere; they were his contribution to what he called "the divine science of politics."

  Gordon S. Wood

  Ideas, Political, Divine

  Fuente: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• A father of the church said that property was theft, many centuries before Proudhon was born. Bourdaloue reaffirmed it. Montesquieu was the inventor of national workshops and of the theory that the state owed every man a living. Nay, was not the church herself the first organized democracy?

  James Russell Lowell

  Father, Men, Church

  James Russell Lowell (1889). "Libros y Bibliotecas: Democracia, y otros ensayos"

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• Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Country, Law, Liberty

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• The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind--he had been so for such a long time--but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Philosophy, Long, World

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• After Montesquieu, the next great addition to Sociology (which is the term I may be allowed to invent to designate Social Physics) was made by Condorcet, proceeding on the views suggested by his illustrious friend Turgot.

  Auguste Comte

  Views, May, Next

  Auguste Comte (1858). “The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte”, p.444

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• No hay error tan monstruoso que no encuentre defensores entre los hombres más capaces. Imaginemos un congreso de eminentes personalidades, como Moro, Bacon, Grocio, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleón, Pitt, etc. El resultado sería una Enciclopedia del Error.

  Lord Acton

  Men, Errors, Etc

  "Cartas de Lord Acton a Mary Gladstone". Libro de John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1913.

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• Puede que nos guste saber cuál es la parte de Platoy cuál la de Montesquieu o Goethe, y qué pensamiento fue siempre querido por el propio escritor; pero el valor de las frases consiste en su radicalidad e igual aptitud para todas las inteligencias. Se ajustan a todos nuestros hechos como un encanto. Nos respetamos tanto más cuanto más las conocemos.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Plato, May, Aptitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2614, Delphi Classics

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