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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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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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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We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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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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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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Vitam Impendere Vero (I consecrate my life to truth).
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
Baron de Montesquieu
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What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
Baron de Montesquieu