Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.
Interpretation
Some individuals not only burden those around them with their negativity but also leave a lasting impact on future generations.
This quote by Montesquieu highlights the tendency of certain people to be intolerable, extending their negative influence beyond their immediate circle to affect future generations. It suggests that a foolish person can sap the joy and interest of those around them and, through their written works or actions, persistently challenge the enjoyment of posterity, emphasizing the importance of personal responsibility and the impact of one's legacy.
In practice
In a speech about the impact of literature, one might quote Montesquieu to illustrate how some works shape society long after the author is gone.
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.
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.
I don't let go of concepts -I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.
Logic is the hygiene the mathematician practices to keep his ideas healthy and strong.
It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say.
It has long been recognized that an essential element in protecting human rights was a widespread knowledge among the population of what their rights are and how they can be defended.
I am a collection of dismantled almosts.
It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning...and let anything better come as a surprise.
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