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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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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
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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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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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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.
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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The less men think, the more they talk.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
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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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
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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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu