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I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
World
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Wise
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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself
Baron de Montesquieu
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Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There are countries where a man is worth nothing there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
Baron de Montesquieu
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[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
Baron de Montesquieu
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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
Baron de Montesquieu
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
Baron de Montesquieu
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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
Baron de Montesquieu
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We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
Baron de Montesquieu