"There is the same difference between political theory and constitutional laws as there is between poetics and poetry. The illustrious Montesquieu is to Lycurgus, in the intellectual hierarchy, what Batteux is to Homer or Racine. Moreover, these two talents positively exclude each other, as can be seen by the example of Locke, who fumbled badly when he presumed to give laws to the Americans."
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Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1796), ch. VI
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Political_philosophy
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Political philosophy
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