Montesquieu Quotes on Knowledge
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755), gave eighteenth-century political thought one of its most ambitious works of comparative political knowledge in the long Spirit of the Laws (1748), preceded by the satirical Persian Letters (1721) and the Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans (1734). The framework treats the laws and political institutions of every people as systematically related to the underlying conditions of climate, geography, religion, mode of subsistence, and historical development — anticipating much of the comparative political and sociological method that the nineteenth century would systematize, and supplying the immediate philosophical background for the doctrine of separated powers that the American constitutional tradition would adopt.
Quotes
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“If one only wished to be Sad , this could be horrible for the rest of civilisation; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.”
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors, Both Ancient and Modern (1891) edited by Tryon Edwards . -
“Chapter XI. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]”
The laws of Rome had wisely divided public power among a large number of magistracies, which supported, checked and tempered each other. Since they all had only limited power, every citizen was qualified for them, and the people — seeing many persons pass before them one after the other — did not grow accustomed to any in particular. But in these times the system of the republic changed. Through t -
“Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.”
No. 3. (Zachi writing to Usbek) -
“No. 3. (Zachi writing to Usbek)”
Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer. -
“You have to study a great deal to know a little.”
Pensées et Fragments Inédits de Montesquieu(1899) | I