Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
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Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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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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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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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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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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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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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
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Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.
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It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.
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If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
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Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
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Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
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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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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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The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
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The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
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The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
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Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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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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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU