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The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.

Baron de Montesquieu

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Baron de Montesquieu
Really
Wickedness
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More quotes by 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.
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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
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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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It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
Baron de Montesquieu
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Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
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.
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A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
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What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
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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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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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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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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
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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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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Baron de Montesquieu
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
Baron de Montesquieu
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The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
Baron de Montesquieu