The Spirit of Laws, Volume 1

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Page 216 - Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control ; for the judge would then be the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.
Page 216 - 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.
Page 7 - That different nations ought, in time of peace, to do one another all the good they can, and, in time of war, as little harm as possible, without prejudice to their own real interests.
Page 183 - It is very probable," says he,* " that mankind would have been obliged, at length, to live constantly under the Government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of Constitution, that has all the internal advantages of a Republican, together with the external force of a Monarchical Government.
Page 213 - In governments, that is, in societies directed by laws, liberty can consist only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.
Page 46 - Honor, therefore, has its supreme laws, to which education is obliged to conform. The chief of these are, that we are permitted to set a value upon our fortune, but are absolutely forbidden to set any upon our lives. " The second is, that when we are raised to a post or preferment, we should never...
Page 426 - Hence it follows that when these manners and customs are to be changed, it ought not to be done by laws; this would have too much the air of tyranny: it would be better to change them by introducing other manners and other customs.
Page 223 - ... it once corrupted would no longer expect any good from its laws; and of course they would either become desperate or fall into a state of indolence.
Page 421 - ... 9. Of the Vanity and Pride of Nations. Vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous. To be convinced of this we need only represent, on the one hand, the numberless benefits which result from vanity, as industry, the arts, fashions, politeness, and taste; on the other, the infinite evils which spring from the pride of certain nations, as laziness, poverty, a total neglect of everything— in fine, the destruction of the...

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