When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUHuman laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
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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Europe is a state with several provinces
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Honor is unknown in despotic states.
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Power should be a check on power.
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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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When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
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Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
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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.
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The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.
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The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
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There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
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It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
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In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU