Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUI should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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The spirit of commerce… renders every man willing to live on his own property…& prevents the growth of luxury.
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Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
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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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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
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A rational army would run away.
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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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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
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Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
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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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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
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Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
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Power should be a check on power.
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We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
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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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The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
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There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
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Peace is a natural effect of trade.
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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
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The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
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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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU