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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.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Men
Equally
Conqueror
Witness
Mixture
Pity
Mixtures
Misery
Inclined
Fortune
Monk
Conquerors
Inspire
Prosperous
Monks
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Mediocrity
Severity
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Adverse

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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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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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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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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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There are countries where a man is worth nothing there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
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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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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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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