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Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Check
Checks
Serve
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Power

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
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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The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
Baron de Montesquieu
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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
Baron de Montesquieu
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What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
Baron de Montesquieu
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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Europe is a state with several provinces
Baron de Montesquieu
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Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
Baron de Montesquieu