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

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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
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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.
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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
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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.
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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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.
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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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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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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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
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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.
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It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
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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.
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.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
Baron de Montesquieu