Шарль Луи Монтескье: Цитаты на английском языке

“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.”

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Montesquieu

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.

“There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude…we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.”

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Montesquieu

No. 104. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“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.”

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Montesquieu

Quoted by Thomas Erskine in the trial of Thomas Paine, 1792

“Of all kind of authors there are none I despise more than compilers, who search every where for shreds of other men's works, which they join to their own, like so many pieces of green turf in a garden: they are not at all superior to compositors in a printing house, who range the types, which, collected together, make a book, towards which they contribute nothing but the labours of the hand. I would have original writers respected, and it seems to me a kind of profanation to take those pieces from the sanctuary in which they reside, and to expose them to a contempt they do not deserve. When a man hath nothing new to say, why does not he hold his tongue? What business have we with this double employment?”

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Montesquieu

No. 66.
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“Christians are beginning to lose the spirit of intolerance which animated them: experience has shown the error of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and of the persecution of those Christians in France whose belief differed a little from that of the king. They have realized that zeal for the advancement of religion is different from a due attachment to it; and that in order to love it and fulfill its behests, it is not necessary to hate and persecute those who are opposed to it.”

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Montesquieu

No. 60. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.”

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Montesquieu

No. 3. (Zachi writing to Usbek)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man who has power is inclined to abuse it; he goes until he finds limits. Is it not strange, though true, to say that virtue itself has need of limits?.
To prevent this abuse, it is necessary that, by the arrangement of things, power shall stop power. A government may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits.”

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Montesquieu книга The Spirit of the Laws

Book XI, Chapter 4.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

“In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other, simply, the executive power of the state.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.
There would be an end of every thing, were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.
The executive power ought to be in the hands of a monarch, because this branch of government, having need of dispatch, is better administered by one than by many: on the other hand, whatever depends on the legislative power, is oftentimes better regulated by many than by a single person.
But, if there were no monarch, and the executive power should be committed to a certain number of persons, selected from the legislative body, there would be an end of liberty, by reason the two powers would be united; as the same persons would sometimes possess, and would be always able to possess, a share in both.”

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Montesquieu книга The Spirit of the Laws

Book XI, Chapter 6.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
Источник: Esprit des lois (1777)/L11/C6 - Wikisource, fr.wikisource.org, fr, 2018-07-07 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Esprit_des_lois_(1777)/L11/C6,

“I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.”

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Montesquieu

No. 125. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.”

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Montesquieu

La raillerie est un discours en faveur de son esprit contre son bon naturel.
Pensées Diverses

“People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.”

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Montesquieu

No. 46. (Usbek writing to Rhedi)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.”

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Montesquieu

No. 65. (Usbek writing to his wives)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“I can assure you that no kingdom has ever had as many civil wars as the kingdom of Christ.”

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Montesquieu

No. 29. (Rica writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“[The Ottoman Empire] whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.”

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Montesquieu

No. 19. (Usbek writing to Rustan)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“You have to study a great deal to know a little.”

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Montesquieu

Источник: Pensées et Fragments Inédits de Montesquieu (1899), I

“One must give one power a ballast, so to speak, to put it in a position to resist another.”

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Montesquieu книга The Spirit of the Laws

Book V, Chapter 14.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

“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 the people the most powerful men gave themselves extraordinary commissions — which destroyed the authority of the people and magistrates, and placed all great matters in the hands of one man, or a few.”

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Montesquieu книга Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline

Источник: Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence/11 - Wikisource, fr.wikisource.org, fr, 2018-07-07 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Consid%C3%A9rations_sur_les_causes_de_la_grandeur_des_Romains_et_de_leur_d%C3%A9cadence/11,
Источник: Montesquieu, Causes of the Greatness of the Romans, 2017-11-09, 2018-07-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20171109014358/http://www.constitution.org/cm/ccgrd_l.htm,
Источник: Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1876), Chapter XI.

“Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.”

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Montesquieu

No. 76. (Usbek writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law.”

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Montesquieu

As quoted in With Prejudice : The Perspective of an Acquitted Defendent (2010) by Vicky Gallas; no earlier occurence of this phrasing has been located (Relevant quote: "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" i.e. "There is no tyranny more cruel than that which is exercised within the shade of the law and with the colours of justice." See Chap. XIV of Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence).
Disputed

“[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread…and a thousand other things of the same kind.”

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Montesquieu

No. 24. (Rica writing to Ibben)
Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)