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Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

Baron de Montesquieu

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

Animal Compassion Power
The English are busy; they don’t have time to be polite.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Busy English Polite Time
What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Depth Philosophical Public Speaking
Liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Day Happy Independence Law Liberty
Men, who are rogues individually, are in the mass very honorable people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men People Teamwork
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mathematics Three Triangles
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
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
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
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
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Men Philosophical
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bigs Favors Friendship
Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Coffee People Wise
If you would be holy, instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Children Holy Imputed Instruct Perform
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
Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Animal Men Society
There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Example Law Morality
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Name Tyrant
The harshest tyranny is that which acts under the protection of legality and the banner of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Justice Protection Tyranny
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Certain Foolishness Kind
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
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Different States War
It is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the exceution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is lessneed of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Law Thinking
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Adventure Empires Greatness
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Acceptance Done Wonderful
I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hate Running Thinking

Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

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Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.

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