"Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty."
"The tyranny of a prince does not bring a state into greater danger than indifference to the public good places a republic."
"Useless laws weaken the necessary laws."
"It is not chance that rules the world. Ask the Romans, who had a continuous sequence of successes when they were guided by a certain plan, and an uninterrupted sequence of reverses when they followed another."
"The deterioration of a government begins almost always by the decay of its principles."
"People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout."
"I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve."
For more about Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, aka Montesquieu, go here.
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