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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
Check
Checks
Necessary
Nature
Power
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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
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Europe is a state with several provinces
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Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour's reading would not dissipate.
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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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We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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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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I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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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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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself
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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.
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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.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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The less men think, the more they talk.
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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
Baron de Montesquieu