Charles de Montesquieu

Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1755), also Baron de Montesquieu, in ful Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, was an illustrious French publicist, born in the Château La Brède, near Bordeaux. His greatest work, and an able, "Esprit des Lois," though rated in "Sartor" as at best the work of "a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity, in heaven". He was author of an able work "On the Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and their Declension".

Wisdom & Quotes

• An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

- Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence

• There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.

- Lettres persanes

• Unless laws weaken the necessary laws.

- De l'esprit de lois

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

- De l'esprit de lois

• Liberty is the right to do everything which the laws allow.

- De l'esprit de lois

• Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.

- Varietes

Lady Mary Wortley Montague