Montesquieu

Solemnity is the shield of idiots.

What orators lack in depth they make up to you in length.

Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

I like peasants—they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.

Liberty is the right to do what the laws permit.

Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

The corruption of every government begins nearly always with that of principles.

No kingdom has ever suffered as many civil wars as Christ’s.

One must mourn not the death of men, but their birth.

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

It is not the young people that degenerate they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.

The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.

In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

The love of democracy is that of equality.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books!

If the triangles were to make a God they would give him three sides.