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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
Necessary
Mankind
Law
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Wickedness
Suppose

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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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There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
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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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I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
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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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An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
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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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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits monarchies by poverty.
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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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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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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The state is the association of men, and not men themselves the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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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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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines they feel.
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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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