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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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Raillery

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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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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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There are countries where a man is worth nothing there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
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Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
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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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Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
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Republics end through luxury monarchies through poverty.
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An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
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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.
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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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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
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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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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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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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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
Baron de Montesquieu