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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

Baron de Montesquieu

They who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world talk very absurdly; for can anything be more unreasonable than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blind Intelligent World
Injustice towards others is a threat to everybody
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Clever Injustice Threat
…when the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Corruption Law Republic
Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

God Nature Science
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Freedom Wells
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Connections Jurisprudence
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Lunch Paris Philosophical
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
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Country Fertility Liberty
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Manners Want
Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Luxury Perfect Republic
Republics come to an end by luxurious habits; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Politics Republic Wisdom
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

Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

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Wonderful maxim: not to talk of things any more after they are done.

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