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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

Baron de Montesquieu

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was impossible for me to execute myself.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Another Execute Impossible Maxims
Power should be a check on power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Checks Evil Good
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Passion Powerful
The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Degrees Different Knowing
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Commerce Communication People
Liberty is the right to do what the law permits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
Political liberty in a citizen is that tranquillity of spirit which comes from the opinion each one has of his security, and in order for him to have this liberty the government must be such that one citizen cannot fear another citizen.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Order Political
Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Earth Law Political
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
In the state of nature… all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Equality Law Men
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. you are comparing your lot with an ideal which is of course better and therefore you feel worse
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Gratitude People
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Apathy Democracy Wisdom
Religious wars are not caused by the fact that there is more than one religion, but by the spirit of intolerance… the spread of which can only be regarded as the total eclipse of human reason.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religion Religious War
Do you think that God will punish them for not practicing a religion which he did not reveal to them?
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Religion Thinking
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

Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

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Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.

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