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 MONTESQUIEUWith truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.
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The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
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The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
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Virtue is necessary to a republic.
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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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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Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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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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If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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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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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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU