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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

Baron de Montesquieu

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should seem a fool, but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Philosophical Success Wise
It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Men Needs
The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Machines Passion Ruins
The English are busy folk; they have no time in which to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy Polite Time
Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disappointment Reading Sovereign
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

Cutting Government Tree
The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Administration Power Use
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
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Republic Tyrants
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mathematics Three Triangles
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
It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Learning Men Science
If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Philosophical Two Sides
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
Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Overt Punish Undertake
The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Forgiveness Love Philosophy

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

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