In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThat 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
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Peace is a natural effect of trade.
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What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
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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 state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
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Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
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As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.
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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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Not to be loved is a misfortune, but it is an insult to be loved no longer.
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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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There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
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We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
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The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
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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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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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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
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The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU