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Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Baron de Montesquieu

That anyone who possesses power has a tendency to abuse it is an eternal truth. They tend to go as far as the barriers will allow.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Peace Tendencies
An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Human Justice Rights Threat
Liberty itself has appeared intolerable to those nations who have not been accustomed to enjoy it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enjoy Government Liberty
If you run after wit, you will succeed in catching folly.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Catching Running Succeed
It is difficult for the united states to be all of equal power and extent.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Difficult Equal United States
When the [law making] and [law enforcement] powers are united in the same person… there can be no liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enforcement Law Liberty
It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Learning Men Science
Man, as a physical being, is like other bodies governed by invariable laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Humanity Law Men
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Atheism Atheist Law
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Overt Punish Undertake
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
At our coming into the world we contract an immense debt to our country, which we can never discharge.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Cowardice Envy Fortune
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

Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.

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Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.

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