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You have to study a great deal to know a little.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Great
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Deals
Learning
Study
Littles
Little

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The spirit of commerce... renders every man willing to live on his own property...& prevents the growth of luxury.
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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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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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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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Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
Baron de Montesquieu