I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUDemocracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
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Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
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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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When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one’s ability.
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In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
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If triangles had a god, he would have three sides.
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Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
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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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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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As 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.
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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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