Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUAs 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
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This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
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There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
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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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The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
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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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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
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People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
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The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
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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.
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What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
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As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
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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 majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU