Montesquieu — "The more a people are civilized, the more they become enslaved."

"Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty."

"To form a moderate government, it is necessary to combine the powers, to regulate them, to temper them, to set them in motion; to give, so to speak, a ballast to one, in order to enable it to resist a…"

"It is impossible for us to suppose that these are men; because if we should suppose them to be men, one would begin to believe that we ourselves are not Christians."

"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 s…"

"In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil…"