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.
Interpretation
Nations should strive to do good for one another during peace and minimize harm during conflict, while safeguarding their own interests.
This quote by Montesquieu highlights the moral obligation of nations to promote goodwill and cooperation in times of peace. It also emphasizes the need for nations to act judiciously during conflicts, ensuring that while they look after their own interests, they should aim to inflict the least damage possible on others, thereby balancing self-interest with ethical considerations in international relations.
In practice
In a speech about international diplomacy, a leader might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of cooperation.
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.
There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.
The underlying assumption that human nature is basically the same at all times, everywhere, and obeys eternal laws beyond human control, is a conception that only a handful of bold thinkers have dared to question.
Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about "character issues."
There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
We have this idea in our minds that there's this separation of church and state in America, which I think is a good thing. And we extend that to our politics - not just church and state, but it's also there's a separation of religion and politics. But of course there isn't.
'What is' is more important than 'what should be.' Too many people are looking at 'what is' from a position of thinking 'what should be'.
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