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Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
River
Gentle
Rivers
Away
Would
Fain
Torrent
Glide
Carried

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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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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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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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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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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
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When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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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 savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
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Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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