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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThere is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
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To lend money without interest, is certainly an action laudable and extremely good; but it is obvious, that it is only a counsel of religion, and not a civil law.
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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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The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
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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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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
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In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.
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The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.
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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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Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.
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If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
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I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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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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Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
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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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There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
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If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.
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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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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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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU