"Laws, taken in their broadest meaning, are the necessary relations deriving from the nature of things; and in this sense, all beings have their laws: the divinity has its laws, the material world has its laws, then intelligences superior to man have their laws, the beasts have their laws, man has his
laws." (Montesquieu 1989, 1.1)
"Many things govern men: climate, religion, laws, the maxims of the government, examples of past things, mores, and manners; a general spirit is formed as a result. To the extent that, in each nation, one of these causes acts more forcefully, the others yield to it. Nature and climate almost alone dominate savages; manners govern the Chinese; laws tyrannize Japan; in former times mores set the tone in Lacedaemonia; in Rome it was set by the maxims of government and the ancient mores (2006, XlX.4 )."
"Mores and manners are usages that laws have not established, or that they have not been able, or have not wanted, to establish. The difference between laws and mores is that, while laws regulate the actions of the citizen, mores regulate the actions of the man. The difference between mores and manners is that the first are more concerned with internal, and the latter external, conduct (Montesquieu 2006, XIX.16)."
"Laws should be so appropriate to the people for whom they are made that it is very unlikely that the laws of one nation can suit another. Laws must relate to the nature and the principle of the government that is established or that one wants to establish, whether those laws form it as do political laws, or maintain it, as do civil laws.
They should be related to the physical aspect of the country; to the climate, be it freezing torrid, or temperate; to the properties of the terrain, its location and extent; to the way of life of the peoples, be they plowmen,purpose of the legislator, and to the order of things on which they are established. They must be considered from all these points of view.
This is what I undertake to do in this work. I shall examine all these relations; together they form what is called THE SPIRIT OF THE LAWS (Montesquieu 2006, 1.3)."
"It is true that in democracies the people seem to do what they want, but political liberty in no way consists in doing what one wants. In a state, that is, in a society where there are laws, liberty can consist only in having the power to do what one should want to do and in no way being constrained to do what one should not want to do.
One must put oneself in mind of what independence is and what liberty is. Liberty is the right to do everything that the laws permit; and if one citizen could do what they forbid, he would no longer have liberty because the others would likewise have this same power (Montesquieu 2006, XI.3)."