Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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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Very good laws may be ill timed.
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Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
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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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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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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
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The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
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It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
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I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
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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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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.
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Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU