WIST Quotations

Montesquieu -- 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)]

Dave — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 23:39:56 +0000

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)]

(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)]

West, Rebecca -- “Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Dave — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 15:01:47 +0000

The belief that all higher life is governed by the idea of renunciation poisons our moral life by engendering vanity and egotism. But if we take gratification as our ideal we thereby impose on ourselves a program of self-restraint; for if we claim that we are under the necessity of learning all that we can about reality, and that we learn most through pleasure, we must also admit that we are under the necessity of hearing what our fellow-creatures learn about it and of working out a system by which we will curb our pleasures so that they do not interfere with those of others. If, however, we claim that it is by renunciation that we achieve wisdom, we have no logical reason for feeling any disapproval of conditions that thrust pain and deprivation on others.

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
“Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Adapted into Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1952).

Russell, Bertrand -- Lecture (1948-12-26), “Social Cohesion and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 1, BBC Radio

Dave — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:22:45 +0000

We now know that a life which goes excessively against natural impulse is one which is likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and all uncharitableness. They may develop strains of cruelty, or, on the other hand, they may so completely lose all joy in life that they have no longer any capacity for effort.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1948-12-26), “Social Cohesion and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 1, BBC Radio

Transcript.

Collected, with edits, as collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949). In the book, the first sentence begins, "We now know that a life which goes against natural impulse beyond a point is one which is likely to involve ..."