I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
Baron De MontesquieuRead
Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
Interpretation
True love for a democracy encompasses a deep respect for equality and simplicity in governance.
This quote by Montesquieu highlights the interconnected nature of love for a republic, democracy, and the fundamental principles of equality and frugality that support a just society. It suggests that genuine affection for democratic ideals entails valuing equal rights among citizens and a careful, modest approach to governance, ensuring that the people's needs are prioritized over extravagance and inequality.
In practice
During a speech about civic duty, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of valuing democracy.
I have never known any distress that an hour's reading did not relieve.
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
The deceitfulness of the heart of man appears in no one thing so much as this of spiritual pride and self-righteousness. The subtlety of Satan appears in its height, in his managing persons with respect to this sin. And perhaps one reason may be that here he has most experience; he knows the way of its coming in; he is acquainted with the secret springs of it: it was his own sin. Experience gives vast advantage in leading souls, either in good or evil.
If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.
Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion. The industrial society ... recognises nothing except the power to acquire ... No other kind of hope or satisfaction or pleasure can any longer be envisaged within the culture of capitalism.
You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
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