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

Baron de Montesquieu

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

Country Fertility Liberty
Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Republic Tyrants
The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Powerful Sick
The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Criminals Tests
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman… because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Firsts Men Ruin
I shall be obliged to wander to the right and to the left, that I may investigate and discover the truth.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

May Obliged Wander
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Law Manners Want
A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Speak Writing
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Republic Virtue
Human laws made to direct the will ought to give precepts, and not counsels.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Giving Law Made
When a government lasts a long while, it deteriorates by insensible degrees. Republics end through luxury, monarchies through poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Animal Compassion Power
Liberty… is there only when there is no abuse of power.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Liberty Power
There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Death Men Weep
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

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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