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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

Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

History People Vacant
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empires Peace War
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Honesty Integrity War
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

May Obliged Wander
There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Government Reality
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Authority Men
Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Men Power
There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Death Men Weep
In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Republic
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Lunch Paris Philosophical
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Talking Wit
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Given Philosophical Talent
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
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Humanity Patriotism
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
Democracy 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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracies Government Wisdom

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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