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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Supreme
Democracy
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People
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
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A rational army would run away.
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The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
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The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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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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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
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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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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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Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
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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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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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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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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu