Thus 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.
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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There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
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If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
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Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
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That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
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Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
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An injustice to one is a threat made to all
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Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
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The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
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Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
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A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
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Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
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The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
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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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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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When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
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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 wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
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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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An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
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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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When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
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To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
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Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
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It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
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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.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU