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Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

Baron de Montesquieu

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Ambition Community Mind
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bigs Favors Friendship
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
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Day Happy Independence Law Liberty
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
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gratitude Men Ties
To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Looks Success Wise
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
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Given May
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
Friendship is a contract in which we render small services in expectation of big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Contract Expectation Friendship
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Reason Sophisticated
Better it is to say that the government most comfortable to nature is that which best agrees with the humor and disposition of the people in whose favor it is established.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favor Government People
As men are affected in all ages by the same passions, the occasions which bring about great changes are different, but the causes are always the same.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Age Men Passion
Power ought to serve as a check to power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Ought Power
No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blood Kingdoms Philosophical

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

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Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

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