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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

Baron de Montesquieu

What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fear Men Silly
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Succession Vain
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Spare
Slavery, properly so called, is the establishment of a right which gives to one man such a power over another as renders him absolute master of his life and fortune.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Giving Men Slavery
We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Magic Two Wisdom
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Talking Wit
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mathematics Three Triangles
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Humanity Law Men
What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cowardice Envy Fortune
…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Law Republic
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Nature Science
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Certain Foolishness Kind
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Different States War
The coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty: at least there is not a single soul who, on quitting the house, does not believe himself four times wittier that when he entered it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Coffee Witty
They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blind Intelligent World
For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bankers Country Jobs

When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

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When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.

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Popular Authors

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