Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUIn 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
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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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It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
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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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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
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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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As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
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The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
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Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
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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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There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
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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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In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
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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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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
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I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
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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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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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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
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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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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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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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU