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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

It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Defense Men Reason
In the birth of societies it is the chiefs of states who give it its special character; and afterward it is this special character that forms the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Giving Leadership
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
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Ought Power
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
The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bad Nature Slavery States
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enforcement Law Liberty
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Earth Law Political
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracies Government Wisdom
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Succession Vain
There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Executrix Judging Liberty Separate
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Connections Jurisprudence
No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blood Kingdoms Philosophical
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Commerce Communication People
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
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

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.

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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.

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