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As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Honor
Dangerous
Virtue
Fear
Despotism
Political
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Republic
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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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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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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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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As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
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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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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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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.
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I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
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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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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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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