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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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More quotes by 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.
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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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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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
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Vanity and pride of nations vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
Baron de Montesquieu
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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There is hardly any grief that an hour's reading will not dissipate.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Republics end through luxury monarchies through poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu
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[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread... and a thousand other things of the same kind.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
Baron de Montesquieu