The Spirit of the Laws quotes

To prevent the abuse of power, it is necessary that by the very disposition of things power should be a check to power.

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 things that depend on the civil law.

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.

The political liberty of the subject is a tranquillity of mind, arising from the opinion each person has of his safety.

the national judges are no more than the mouth that pronounces the words of the law, mere passive beings incapable of moderating either its force or rigor.

SLAVERY, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another, as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune. The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.

It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow, that we ourselves are not Christians.

People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates. […] the inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave.

the English destroy themselves most unaccountably; they destroy themselves often in the very bosom of happiness.