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The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

Baron de Montesquieu

In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
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
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Politics Republic Wisdom
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Philosophical Success Time
Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Clever Injustice Threat
The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Christian Liberty Stranger
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
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 English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy Polite Time
The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy English Polite Time
Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Pride Vanity
At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Debt World
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Philosophical Two Sides
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Philosophical Thinking
…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Law Republic
Very good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Good Law May Very

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

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The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

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