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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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Baron de Montesquieu
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[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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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.
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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
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The less men think, the more they talk.
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The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
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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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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
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...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
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Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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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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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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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