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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

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

Humanity Law Men
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Execution Law Philosophical
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
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
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
The public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Business Certain Motion Quick Slow
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
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Spare
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
Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Liberty Power
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
It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Accomplish Adventure Adventurous
The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mind Prejudice Superstitions
The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy Polite Time
Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disposition Prejudice Reason
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Reason Sophisticated
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
Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Courage Law Morality
The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Justice Protection Tyranny
The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bad Nature Slavery States
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Brain Guarantees Humans
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Act Law Overt Punish
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Connections Jurisprudence
Love of reading enables a man to exchange the weary hours, which come to every one, for hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Library Men Reading
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Apathy Democracy Wisdom
When the savages of Louisiana wish to have fruit, they cut the tree at the bottom and gather the fruit. That is exactly a despotic government.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cutting Government Tree
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

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.

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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.

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