For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEULaws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
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I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
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What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
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When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
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The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
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Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
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Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
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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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There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
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I shall ever repeat it, that mankind are governed not by extremes, but by principals of moderation.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU