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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Wants
Law
Change
Customs
Manners
Changing
Laws

More quotes by 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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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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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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As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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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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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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
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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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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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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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Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Europe is a state with several provinces
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
Baron de Montesquieu