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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

Baron de Montesquieu

Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cutting Politics Progression Smooth
Honor is unknown in despotic states.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despotism Honor States
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Power Should
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Another Doors Fortune Window
I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Art History Philosophy
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Humanity Patriotism
In the matter of dress one should always keep below one’s ability.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Dresses Matter Should
It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Men Needs
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Christian Liberty Stranger
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Thinking
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Knowing Long Success
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
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Earth Law Political

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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Popular Authors

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