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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

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Baron de Montesquieu
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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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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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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
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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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It is not the young people that degenerate they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
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When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
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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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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
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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.
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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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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In the state of nature... all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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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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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu