Montesquieu Quotes

Our liberty cannot depend on the good intention of those in power.

Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.

Freedom can be destroyed, not just by its retraction, but also by its abuse.

It is harder to maintain the balance of freedom than it is to endure the weight of tyranny.

I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.

There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you.

He who has the greatest power put into his hands will only become the more impatient of any restraint in the use of it.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

Government is essentially the negation of liberty.

If dictatorship is the concentration of power, freedom consists in its diffusion.

Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state.

Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

"Magna Carta is the Law: Let the King look out." So it has always been with tyrants among our own people: when the King was tyrant, let him look out. And it has always been the same, and will be the same, whether the tyrant be the Barons, whether the tyrant be the Church, whether he be demagogue or dictator - let them look out.

Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism.

Security without freedom means slavery.

The worst law is better than bureaucratic tyranny.

Without democracy freedom is a chimera

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

Power is always a corrupting influence.