"I beg one favour of my readers, which I fear we'll not be granted me; this is, that they will not judge by a few hours reading, of the labor of twenty years ; that they will approve or condemn the book entire, and not a few particular phrases. If they would search into the design of the author, they can do it in no other way so completely, as by searching into the design of the work." (Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws, second English edition of 1751, Preface)

"Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness ; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition." (Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws, second English edition of 1751, Book XV, Chap. 3, p. 294)

"Bad laws having made lazy men ; they have been reduced to slavery, because of their laziness." (Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws, second English edition of 1751, Book XV, Chap. 8, p. 298)

"The petty barbarous nations of America are called by the Spaniards *Indios Bravos,* being much more difficult to subdue than the great empires of Mexico and Peru." (Baron de Montesquieu in The Spirit of Laws, second English edition of 1751, Book XVIII, Chap. 7, p. 334)