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Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
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Attains
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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
Baron de Montesquieu
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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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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
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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
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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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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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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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu