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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
Ought
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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In republican governments, men are all equal equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything in the latter, because they are nothing.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
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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
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The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
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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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The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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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.
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