Montesquieu Quotes on Freedom
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, was a French philosopher and one of the architects of Enlightenment political thought. This page collects quotes attributed to Montesquieu on the topic of freedom, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Montesquieu:
“Liberty is the right to do what the laws permit.”
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Attributed to Montesquieu:
“When power is constant, free states will not last.”
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“In a free nation, it matters not whether individuals reason well or ill; it is sufficient that they do reason. Truth arises from the collision and from hence springs liberty, which is a security from the effects of reasoning.”
Quoted by Thomas Erskine in the trial of Thomas Paine , 1792 -
“No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced 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. See Chap. XIV of Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence . Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p. 89. Quoted in Steve Sheppard, I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials (2009), preface - xxiv.”
Il n’y a point de plus cruelle tyrannie que celle que l’on exerce à l’ombre des lois et avec les couleurs de la justice, lorsqu’on va, pour ainsi dire, noyer des malheureux sur la planche même sur laquelle ils s’étaient sauvés.