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Power ought to serve as a check to power.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Checks
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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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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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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.
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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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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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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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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
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The less men think, the more they talk.
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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
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The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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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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The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
Baron de Montesquieu