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In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

Baron de Montesquieu

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

Lunch Paris Philosophical
Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Republic Tyrants
Solemnity is the shield of idiots
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Idiot Shields Stupidity
An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Future Life Philosophical
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enforcement Law Liberty
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gratitude Men Ties
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Institutions Shapes States
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Animal Compassion Power
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracies Government Wisdom
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
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Differences Independence Law
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
Peace is a natural effect of trade.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Natural Philosophical Trade
Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Pride Vanity
There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Government Reality

In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

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In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.

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Popular Authors

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