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The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

Baron de Montesquieu

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Adventure Empires Greatness
…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
That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Peace Tendencies
One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Body Giving Law
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Authority Men
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Politics Republic Wisdom
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Degrees Government
The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes that were inexplicable.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hands Heart might
Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Contract Expectation Friendship
The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Philosophical Spirit
As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Equality Men War
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Philosophical Success Time
The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Machines Passion Ruins
When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Long Luxury
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Lunch Paris Philosophical
Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disappointment Reading Sovereign

The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

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The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.

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