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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.

Baron de Montesquieu

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 God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Brain Guarantees Humans
A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Speak Writing
Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favor Government People
As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Age Men Passion
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religious Spirit War
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
When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Discover Foolishness Wit
In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Three
The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy Polite Time
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
Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empty Orignal Praise
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
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Humanity Law Men

When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.

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When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.

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Popular Authors

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