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

Baron de Montesquieu

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

Men People Teamwork
There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Government Reality
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Atheism Atheist Law
Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Contract Expectation Friendship
If triangles had a god, he would have three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Three Triangles
Europe is a state with several provinces
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Province Several State
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cures Prejudice Trade
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Cutting Politics Progression Smooth
Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry. She renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labor.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Nature Proportion Rewards
In the state of nature… all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Equality Law Men
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracies Government Wisdom
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Order Political
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

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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