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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

Baron de Montesquieu

Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Given May
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men
The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Forgiveness Love Philosophy
It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Learning Men Science
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
Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracy Equality Love
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
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Philosophical Two Sides
In a republic there is no coercive force as in other governments, the laws must therefore endeavor to supply this defect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Republic
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
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
It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Defense Men Reason
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Gratitude People
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Reason Sophisticated
Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Overt Punish Undertake
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Thinking

It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

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It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

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