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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
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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
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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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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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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.
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
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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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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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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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I should like to abolish funerals the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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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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Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
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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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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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Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
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An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
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
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It is not the young people that degenerate they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
Baron de Montesquieu