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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

Baron de Montesquieu

Power ought to serve as a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Ought Power
The crime against nature will never make any great progress in society unless people are prompted to it by some particular custom.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Crime People Progress
I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Philosophical Success Wise
When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cutting Government Tree
Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despise Fool Law Men
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Connections Jurisprudence
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Politics Republican
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
A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

People Style Writing
If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Children Holy Imputed Instruct Perform
People here argue about religion interminably, but it appears that they are competing at the same time to see who can be the least devout.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Arguing People Religion
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Talking Thinking
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
Virtue has needs of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Limits Needs Virtue
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Poverty Republic
In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Giving Leadership

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

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There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.

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