Political virtue is a renunciation of oneself, which is always a very painful thing. One can define this virtue as love of the laws and the homeland. This love, requiring a continuous preference of the public interest over one’s own, produces all the individual virtues; they are only that preference.
[La vertu politique est un renoncement à soi-même, qui est toujours une chose très-pénible. On peut définir cette vertu, l’amour des loix & de la patrie. Cet amour, demandant une préférence continuelle de l’intérêt public au sien propre, donne toutes les vertus particulieres: elles ne sont que cette préférence.]
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. Cohler/Miller/Stone (1989)]
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(Source (French)). Other translations:Virtue is a self-renunciation which is always arduous and painful. This virtue may be defined, the love of the laws and of our country. As this love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all the particular virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself.
[tr. Nugent (1750)]Virtue is a self-renunciation, which is very arduous and painful. This virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all private virtues [....]
[E.g. (1904)]Virtue is self-renunciation, which is always a very hard thing. This virtue may be defined as love of the laws and of the homeland. As this love requires a continual preference for the public interest over one’s own, it confers all the separate virtues: they are nothing more than this preference.
[tr. Stewart (2018)]
Quotations about:
private interest
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Every Man must seriously set himself to root out his Passions, Prejudices and Attachments, and to get the better of his private Interest. The only reputable Principle and Doctrine must be that all Things must give Way to the public.
John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1776-04-16) to Mercy Otis Warren
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During the greater part of the nineteenth century the significance of the opposition between the two principles of individual rights and social functions was masked by the doctrine of the inevitable harmony between private interests and public good. Competition, it was argued, was an effective substitute for honesty. Today … few now would profess adherence to the compound of economic optimism and moral bankruptcy which led a nineteenth century economist to say: “Greed is held in check by greed, and the desire for gain sets limits to itself.”
R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
The Acquisitive Century, ch. 3 “The Acquisitive Society” (1920)
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