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If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

Baron de Montesquieu

I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religious Spirit War
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
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cowardice Envy Fortune
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Humanity Law Men
The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Perfect Republic
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 no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Name Tyrant
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 reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Highway Philosophical Reason
Virtue has needs of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Limits Needs Virtue
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
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
Society is the union of men and not the men themselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Anger Men Society
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Real War
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religion Religious War

If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

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If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.

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