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Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

Baron de Montesquieu

Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Nature Science
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Adventure Empires Greatness
Politics are a smooth file, which cuts gradually, and attains its end by slow progression.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cutting Politics Progression Smooth
Men should be bewailed at their birth, and not at their death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Men Philosophical
Experience constantly proves that every man who has power is impelled to abuse it; he goes on till he is pulled up by some limits. Who would say it! virtue even has need of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Busy English Polite Time
There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Aggression Order Two War
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Description Paradise Sensible
What orators lack in depth they make up for in length.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Depth Philosophical Public Speaking
Love of the republic in a democracy, is a love of the democracy; love of the democracy is that of equality. Love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracy Equality Love
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
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
I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

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

Country Fertility Liberty
What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by there good fortune.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cowardice Envy Fortune
Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Liberty Power
If triangles had a god, he would have three sides.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Three Triangles
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Religious Spirit War
Talent is a gift which God has given us secretly, and which we reveal without perceiving it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Given Philosophical Talent
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Execution Law Philosophical
When a government is arrived to that degree of corruption as to be incapable of reforming itself, it would not lose much by being new moulded.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Degrees Government
When we seek after wit, we discover only foolishness.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Discover Foolishness Wit
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Institutions Shapes States
Honor sets all the parts of the body politic in motion, and by its very action connects them; thus each individual advances the public good, while he only thinks of promoting his own interest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Body Honor Thinking
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
The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Deed Majority Men

Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

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Oh, how empty is praise when it reflects back to its origin!

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