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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

Baron de Montesquieu

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
The less luxury there is in a republic, the more it is perfect.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Perfect Republic
Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despise Fool Law Men
The love of study is in us the only lasting passion. All the others quit us in proportion as this miserable machine which holds them approaches its ruins.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Machines Passion Ruins
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
The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bad Nature Slavery States
Man is a social animal formed to please in society.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Animal Men Society
There is still another inconvenieney in conquests made by democracies; their government is ever odious to the conquered states. It is apparently monarchical, but in reality it is more oppressive than monarchy, as the experience of all ages and countries evinces.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Government Reality
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
A nation may lose its liberties in a day and not miss them in a century.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Freedom Liberty Missing
An injustice committed against anyone is a threat to everyone.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Human Justice Rights Threat
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Differences Independence Law
Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Acceptance Done Wonderful
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
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
There is only one thing that can form a bond between men, and that is gratitude… we cannot give someone else greater power over us than we have ourselves.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gratitude Men Ties

Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

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Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.

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