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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

Baron de Montesquieu

Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

History People Vacant
Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracy Fall Spirit
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men People Teamwork
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
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Act Law Overt Punish
Virtue is necessary to a republic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Republic Virtue
Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Cutting Politics Progression Smooth
Very good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Good Law May Very
As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Equality Men War
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Politics Republic Wisdom
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
With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Kind Moral
This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Punishment Remedy Sick
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman… because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Firsts Men Ruin
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Three

Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

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Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.

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