WIST Quotations https://wist.info Wish I'd Said That! Sat, 05 Sep 2026 16:51:57 +0000 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4 https://wist.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/little-w-little-box-60x60.jpg degeneration – WIST Quotations https://wist.info 32 32 43606282 Montesquieu -- Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 4, ch. 5 (4.5) (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)] https://wist.info/montesquieu/81784/ https://wist.info/montesquieu/81784/#respond Mon, 02 Feb 2026 22:43:07 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=81784 It is not the young people that degenerate: they are not spoilt till those of maturer age are already sunk into corruption.

[Ce n’est point le peuple naissant qui dégénere ; il ne se perd que lorsque les hommes faits sont déja corrompus.]


Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755) French political philosopher
Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 4, ch. 5 (4.5) (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)]
    (Source)

On society's need to educate the young into a love for the republic.

(Source (French)). Other translations:

It is not young people who degenerate; they are ruined only when grown men have already been corrupted.
[tr. Cohler/Miller/Stone (1989)]

It is not the rising people that degenerates ; it only declines when the fully-formed men are already corrupted.
[tr. Stewart (2018)]

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