When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUWith 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
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It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
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At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
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Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
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Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
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You have to study a great deal to know a little.
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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
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Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
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A rational army would run away.
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Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
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Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
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The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
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In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU