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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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Baron de Montesquieu
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In republican governments, men are all equal equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything in the latter, because they are nothing.
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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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.
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
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With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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