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I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

Baron de Montesquieu

There is hardly any grief that an hour’s reading will not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Grief Hours Reading
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
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
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empires Peace War
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Description Paradise Sensible
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Act Law Overt Punish
…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
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Apathy Democracy Wisdom
Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Contract Expectation Friendship
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
There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Cutting Politics Progression Smooth
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

May Obliged Wander
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bigs Favors Friendship

I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

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I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.

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