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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Overt
Undertake
Punish
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Laws
Law

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The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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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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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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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.
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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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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
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Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.
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Europe is a state with several provinces
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There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
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The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury.
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Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
Baron de Montesquieu