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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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Baron de Montesquieu
Humans
Counsels
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Laws
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Ought
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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.
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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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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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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.
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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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...when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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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Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
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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.
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The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.
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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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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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
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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
Baron de Montesquieu