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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

Baron de Montesquieu

Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Causes Greater Slowness
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empires Peace War
Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one’s wit at the expense of one’s better nature.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Talking Wit
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

History People Vacant
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Philosophical Thinking
Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Fertility Liberty
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
There is a very good saying that if triangles invented a god, they would make him three-sided.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Mathematics Three Triangles
There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gambling Government Three
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
In republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Politics Republican
The incomparable stupidity of life teaches us to love our parents; divine philosophy teaches us to forgive them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Forgiveness Love Philosophy
It is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Men Needs
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Given Philosophical Talent
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Manners Want
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

Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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Vanity and pride of nations; vanity is as advantageous to a government as pride is dangerous.

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