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Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

Baron de Montesquieu

This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Punishment Remedy Sick
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Administration Power Use
The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Machines Passion Ruins
If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Humanity Patriotism
The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Real War
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
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
[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread… and a thousand other things of the same kind.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Kings Religion
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Description Paradise Sensible
When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Discover Foolishness Wit
We ought to be very cautious and circumspect in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Law Mankind Wickedness
I shall ever repeat it, that mankind are governed not by extremes, but by principals of moderation.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Extremes Mankind Moderation
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Differences Independence Law
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men
They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blind Intelligent World

Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

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Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.

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