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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

Baron de Montesquieu

Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Pride Vanity
The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Machines Passion Ruins
As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Age Men Passion
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Gratitude People
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

Inspire Men Mixtures
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Acceptance Done Wonderful
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Philosophical Thinking
The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Miracle Vanity
We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Magic Two Wisdom
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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Atheism Atheist Law
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Earth Law Political
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Book Suffering Writing
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good
The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Perfect Republic

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

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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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