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It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.

Baron de Montesquieu

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

Deed Majority Men
Wherever I find envy I take a pleasure in provoking it: I always praise before an envious man those who make him grow pale.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Brain Guarantees Humans
There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Another Doors Fortune Window
The pagan religion, which prohibited only some of the grosser crimes, and which stopped the hand but meddled not with the heart, might have crimes that were inexplicable.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hands Heart might
Trade is the best cure for prejudice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cures Prejudice Trade
Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Clever Injustice Threat
[The Pope] will make the king believe that three are only one, that the bread he eats is not bread… and a thousand other things of the same kind.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Believe Kings Religion
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
It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Age Birthday People
We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our school-masters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Education School Two
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Umpires
I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Hate Running Thinking
The severity of the laws prevents their execution.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Execution Law Philosophical
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Democracies Government Wisdom
Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Philosophical Success Time
Friendship is an arrangement by which we undertake to exchange small favors for big ones.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bigs Favors Friendship
Certain kinds of foolishness are such that a greater foolishness would be better.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Certain Foolishness Kind
To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Looks Success Wise
Honor is unknown in despotic states.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despotism Honor States
There are countries where a man is worth nothing; there are others where he is worth less than nothing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Men Nothing Worth
There are bad examples which are worse than crimes; and more states have perished from the violation of morality than from the violation of law.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Example Law Morality
But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Abuse Authority Men
This punishment of death is the remedy, as it were, of a sick society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Punishment Remedy Sick
Virtue in a republic is the love of one’s country, that is the love of equality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Republic Virtue
Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Different States War
No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blood Kingdoms Philosophical

It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.

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It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.

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