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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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Mediocrity
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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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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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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
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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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The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
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If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident
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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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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
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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.
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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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
Baron de Montesquieu