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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

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Baron de Montesquieu
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Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.
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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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Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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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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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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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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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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There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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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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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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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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