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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

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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favor Government People
Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Anger Men Society
Very good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Good Law May Very
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Day Happy Independence Law Liberty
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Ambition Community Mind
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Men Philosophical
In the state of nature… all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Equality Law Men
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Certain Foolishness Kind
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mind Prejudice Superstitions
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men
The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Mankind Wickedness
The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Crime People Progress
Although born in a prosperous realm, we did not believe that its boundaries should limit our knowledge, and that the lore of the East should alone enlighten us.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Aunt Believe East
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Degrees Government
With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Kind Moral

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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