If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThe state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
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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.
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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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There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
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There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
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The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
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Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.
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The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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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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One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.
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Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
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A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
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Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
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The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
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Law should be like death, which spares no one.
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The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
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In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
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In the matter of dress one should always keep below one’s ability.
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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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The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
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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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A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU