Montesquieu Quotes

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

A little citizenship ought to be taught at the mother’s knee and in the nursery. Citizenship is what makes a republic; monarchies can get along without it.

A country can live under a monarchy or a republic, with a parliamentary or a presidential system, under communism or fascism. But it cannot live in anarchy.

Between a conservative republic and a constitutional monarchy there is merely a difference in form.

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

Democracy, republics: What do these words signify?

All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.

The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy.

How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?

Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy) Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism) Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism) Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)

Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.

Germany had the misfortune of becoming poisoned, first because of plenty, and then because of want.

Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep.

And even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn't have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury.

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.

There is nothing perfectly secure but poverty.

Large republics seem to be essentially and inherently aggressive.

The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.

There are some historians who say that democratic republics dont last more than 200 years. Well, weve got to show that you can last more than 200 years. Weve got to continue to sustain the system, and the only way you can do it is by sustaining the constitution and by confronting lies face to face, head on, aggressively.

The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are, however, not solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first in order ... in the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the race.

A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic, on which so much of our system was modeled, like the old Roman Republic, it will lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship.

The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance.

With much we surfeit; plenty makes us poor.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts—and that is a very good thing.