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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

Baron de Montesquieu

There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Animal Compassion Power
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gratitude Men Ties
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
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

History People Vacant
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
Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Pride Vanity
The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Criminals Tests
A rational army would run away.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Army Running War
What unhappy beings men are! They constantly waver between false hopes and silly fears, and instead of relying on reason they create monsters to frighten themselves with, and phantoms which lead them astray.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fear Men Silly
There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Aggression Order Two War
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good
The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Powerful Sick
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Ambition Community Mind
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Humanity Law Men
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enforcement Law Liberty
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Relation

A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

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A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.

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