Montesquieu/biography

Famous quotes containing the words montesquieu and/or biography:

“The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such a long time—but I swear that I do not know how to be deaf: I cannot get used to it, and I am as humiliated and distressed by it today as I was during the first week. No philosophy in the world can palliate deafness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)