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All Charles de Montesquieu Quotes
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
Charles de Montesquieu

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There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
Charles de Montesquieu

57% of people like this quote
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
Charles de Montesquieu

56% of people like this quote
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
Charles de Montesquieu

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In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
Charles de Montesquieu

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The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
Charles de Montesquieu

55% of people like this quote
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
Charles de Montesquieu

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In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
Charles de Montesquieu

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Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
Charles de Montesquieu

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There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
Charles de Montesquieu

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Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
Charles de Montesquieu

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I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
Charles de Montesquieu

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The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
Charles de Montesquieu

51% of people like this quote
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
Charles de Montesquieu

51% of people like this quote
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