Montesquieu Quotes
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S. Stone, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 155.
Catherine II—the Great—appointed a commission to suggest model laws for Russia based on some of the principles of the European Enlightenment. The laws were never officially adopted but they are interesting in that they were the product of “liberal” thinking at the time. This particular definition of “liberty” is similar to that ruse in many country’s modern constitutions which will “guarantee” a right like freedom of speech so long as it does not violate any laws.
While this was a strong central political principle for Reagan, a substantial part of his political party strongly advocated the against the government interjecting itself into people’s lives.
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, and political philosopher.
