Montesquieu

“ So great is the multitude of adopted, and, so to speak, naturalized laws, that it oppresses alike justice and judges. But these volumes of law are nothing in comparison with the appalling army of glossers, commentators, and compilers, a tribe as feeble by inferiority of their minds, as they are strong by their immense numbers. ”

“ Who would imagine that the most ancient and powerful kingdom in Europe has been governed for ten centuries by laws which were not made for it? If the French had been conquered, it would not be difficult to understand, but they are the conquerors. ”

“ Yet it is inconceivable to what an extent they are infatuated about them; everything is swayed by them: fashion is the rule by which they judge what is done in other nations; whatever is foreign always seems to them ridiculous. ”