To lend money without interest, is certainly an action laudable and extremely good; but it is obvious, that it is only a counsel of religion, and not a civil law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEURaillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
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Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
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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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There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
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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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The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
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The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
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Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
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Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions
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When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
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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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I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
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I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
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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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There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU