Baron de Montesquieu

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.

The political liberty of the subject is a tranquility of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.

Luxury is therefore absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in despotic states, but not in republics.

The love of our country is a love of ourselves.

The less we think, the more we talk.

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

There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.

To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.

The English are a people who are very fond of liberty, and they think they are free; but they are much mistaken, for they are free only during the election of members of parliament.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world, one must seem a fool, but be wise.

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

The spirit of moderation should be the spirit of the legislator.

Republics decline through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

The principle of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when every citizen wants to be equal to those whom he has chosen to command him.

It is not the young people who are degenerate; they are merely different.

The love of democracy is that of equality.

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

The most important affair of all is to establish a good system of education.