WIST Quotations https://wist.info Wish I'd Said That! Mon, 12 Oct 2026 21:37:42 +0000 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://wist.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/little-w-little-box-60x60.jpg liberator – WIST Quotations https://wist.info 32 32 43606282 Montesquieu -- Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 19, ch. 27 (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)] https://wist.info/montesquieu/81062/ https://wist.info/montesquieu/81062/#respond Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:54:09 +0000 Dave https://wist.info/?p=81062 A free nation may have a deliverer; a nation enslaved can have only another oppressor. For whoever is able to dethrone an absolute prince has a power sufficient to become absolute himself.

[Une nation libre peut avoir un libérateur; une nation subjuguée ne peut avoir qu’un autre oppresseur. Car tout homme qui a assez de force pour chasser celui qui est déja le maître absolu dans un état, en a assez pour le devenir lui-même.]


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 19, ch. 27 (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)]

(Source (French)). Other translations:

A free nation can have a liberator; a subjugated nation can only have another oppressor. For any man who has enough strength to drive out the one who is already the absolute master in a state has enough to become one himself.
[tr. Cohler/Miller/Stone (1989)]

A free nation can have a liberator; a subjugated nation can only have another oppressor. For any man who has enough force to drive out him who is already the absolute master in a state has enough to become the master himself.
[tr. Stewart (2018)]

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