A really intelligent man feels what other men only know.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEUWherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
More Baron de Montesquieu Quotes
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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
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When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
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In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
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A rational army would run away.
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I shall ever repeat it, that mankind are governed not by extremes, but by principals of moderation.
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Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
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Power should be a check on power.
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If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
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Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
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Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
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This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
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False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
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Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
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If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
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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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The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
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Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
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It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
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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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The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
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Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions
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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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It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
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Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU