Montesquieu Quotes on Justice
Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (De l’esprit des lois, 1748) gave eighteenth-century European political philosophy its most influential comparative analysis of the relationship between justice and the diverse legal-political systems through which actual societies organize their common life. The central methodological commitment is that justice is not a single abstract pattern that can be deduced from human nature as such — laws are appropriate to the climate, terrain, religion, customs, and form of government of the people whose lives they organize, and the comparative-historical study of these adaptations is therefore the proper method of political philosophy. The framework grounds the famous tripartite division of governmental functions (legislative, executive, judicial) and the separation-of-powers doctrine that shaped the United States Constitution and the broader modern constitutional tradition.
Quotes
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Attributed to Montesquieu:
“Liberty is the right to do what the laws permit.”
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“Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”
Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws -
Attributed to Montesquieu:
“There is no nation so powerful as the one that obeys its laws.”
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Attributed to Montesquieu:
“Mankind has been corrupted, and an admirable lesson is given by the law that obliges the rulers themselves to obey it.”
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“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.”
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. -
“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. -
“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.”
Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline(1876) | 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 -
“There are only two cases in which war is just : first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy , and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.”
Lettres Persanes(Persian Letters, 1721) | No. 95. (Usbek writing to Rhedi) -
“I write to thee on this subject, [friend], because I am angry at a book which I have just left, which is so large, that it seems to contain universal science, but it hath almost split my head, without teaching me anything.”
Lettres Persanes(Persian Letters, 1721) | No. 66.