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Europe is a state with several provinces

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
States
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Several
Europe
State

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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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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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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The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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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
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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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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
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
Baron de Montesquieu
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...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
Baron de Montesquieu