Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUKnowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
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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 deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
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If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
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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.
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
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Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
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Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
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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.
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[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread… and a thousand other things of the same kind.
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