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If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.

Baron de Montesquieu

The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Mankind Wickedness
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
Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Liberty Political
For a country, everything will be lost when the jobs of an economist and a banker become highly respected professions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bankers Country Jobs
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Certain Foolishness Kind
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Given Philosophical Talent
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Different States War
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Philosophical Thinking
Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens May Order
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
When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Discover Foolishness Wit
There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Death Men Weep
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
Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Away Carried Gentle Rivers
One more organ or one less in our body would give us a different intelligence. In fact, all the established laws as to why our body is a certain way would be different if our body were not that way.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Body Giving Law
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Degrees Government
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
Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Inspire Men Mixtures
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
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disposition Prejudice Reason
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mathematics Three Triangles
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Funny Inspirational Integrity Leadership
Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Divorce Given Moments
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
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good

If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.

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If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.

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