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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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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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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
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I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
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There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
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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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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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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 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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When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
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Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
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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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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
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Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU