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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Freedom
Missing
May
Nation
Lose
Loses
Century
Liberty
Politics
Liberties
Nations
Miss

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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself
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Europe is a state with several provinces
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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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.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
Baron de Montesquieu