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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.

Baron de Montesquieu

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes that were inexplicable.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hands Heart might
Every man who has power is impelled to abuse it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Evil Men
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
If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Catching Running Succeed
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
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
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Adventure Empires Greatness
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Day Happy Independence Law Liberty
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Umpires
Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Fertility Liberty
False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Happiness Laughter Men
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens Men Naked
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
Very good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Good Law May Very
There is something in animals beside the power of motion. They are not machines; they feel.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Animal Compassion Power

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.

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I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.

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