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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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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
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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.
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by 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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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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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 is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
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What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
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