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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.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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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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[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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Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
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When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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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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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
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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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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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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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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.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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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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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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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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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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.
Baron de Montesquieu