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Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Government
Advantageous
Vanity
Pride
Dangerous
Nations

More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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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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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
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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The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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A rational army would run away.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The less men think, the more they talk.
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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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.
Baron de Montesquieu