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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
Changing
Laws
Wants
Law
Change
Customs
Manners

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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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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In republican governments, men are all equal equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything in the latter, because they are nothing.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
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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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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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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
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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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
Baron de Montesquieu