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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
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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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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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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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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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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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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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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.
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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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A rational army would run away.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
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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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Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
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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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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
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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 have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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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.
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