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 MONTESQUIEUVirtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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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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No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
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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.
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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
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In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
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Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
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If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.
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If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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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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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
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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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Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
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I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
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I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
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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.
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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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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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The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
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If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
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There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
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This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU