I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUPower should be a check on power.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
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The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
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I shall ever repeat it, that mankind are governed not by extremes, but by principals of moderation.
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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.
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In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.
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The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it.
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Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
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There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
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When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
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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