Power ought to serve as a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUExperience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
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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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Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
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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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU -
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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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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There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
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Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
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With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
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When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, it is called a democracy.
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In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU