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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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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Great commanders write their actions with simplicity because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu
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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
Baron de Montesquieu
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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.
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
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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
Baron de Montesquieu
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
Baron de Montesquieu
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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Luxury ruins republics poverty, monarchies.
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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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
Baron de Montesquieu
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
Baron de Montesquieu