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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
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More quotes by Baron de Montesquieu

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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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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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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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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.
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Virtue in a republic is the love of one's country, that is the love of equality.
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I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
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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.
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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person... there can be no liberty.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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Solemnity is the shield of idiots
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one's ability.
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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.
Baron de Montesquieu