Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
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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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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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
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There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
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Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
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The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
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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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Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
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Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
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I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
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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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Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
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The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
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For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.
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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 tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
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But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
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Virtue is necessary to a republic.
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Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
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The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
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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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Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
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Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
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There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
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The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
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