When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUThus 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.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
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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.
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…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
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There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.
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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.
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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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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Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
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It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
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Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
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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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Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU