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The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

Baron de Montesquieu

The power of divorce can be given only to those who feel the inconveniences of marriage, and who are sensible of the moment when it is for their interest to make them cease.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Divorce Given Moments
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Succession Vain
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
Virtue is necessary to a republic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Republic Virtue
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religion Religious War
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Clever Injustice Threat
There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Death Men Weep
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
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
Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despise Fool Law Men
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 public business must be carried on with a certain motion, neither too quick nor too slow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Business Certain Motion Quick Slow
Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Away Carried Gentle Rivers
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 English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

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The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.

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