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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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Baron de Montesquieu
Hate
Calumnies
Running
Calumny
True
Hating
Persons
Untrue
Never
Deceived
Thinking
Listen
Worth
Risk

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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.
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Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
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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.
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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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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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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The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
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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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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
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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.
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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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There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.
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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.
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Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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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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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
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With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
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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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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[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.
Baron de Montesquieu