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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

When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Brain Guarantees Humans
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
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
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Republic Virtue
There should be weeping at a man’s birth, not at his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Birth Death Men Weep
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
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Country Fertility Liberty
The laws do not take upon them to punish any other than overt acts.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Act Law Overt Punish
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
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
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
Virtue has needs of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Limits Needs Virtue
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
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Relation
A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

People Style Writing

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.

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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.

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