A quotation from Montesquieu

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)]


More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/montesquieu/81784/

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