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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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Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
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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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Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
Baron de Montesquieu
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
Baron de Montesquieu
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
Baron de Montesquieu
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
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
Baron de Montesquieu
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
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
Baron de Montesquieu