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The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

Baron de Montesquieu

Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
The spirit of commerce… renders every man willing to live on his own property…& prevents the growth of luxury.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Growth Luxury Men
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Talking Wit
It is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Power Should
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
Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gunpowder Men Secret
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
Democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is corrupted, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracy Fall Spirit
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Manners Want
With truths of a certain kind, it is not enough to make them appear convincing: one must also make them felt. Of such kind are moral truths.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Kind Moral
The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bad Nature Slavery States
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
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empires Peace War
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Talking Thinking
Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Body Honor Thinking
The wickedness of mankind makes it necessary for the law to suppose them better than they really are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Mankind Wickedness

The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

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The prejudices of superstition are superior to all others, and have the strongest influence on the human mind.

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Popular Authors

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