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.

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.

Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.

In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.

You have to study a great deal to know a little.

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.