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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

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
In the infancy of societies, the chiefs of state shape its institutions; later the institutions shape the chiefs of state.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Institutions Shapes States
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
Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Coffee People Wise
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
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
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Difficult People Since Thinking
Great commanders write their actions with simplicity; because they receive more glory from facts than from words.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Facts Simplicity Writing
Christianity stamped its character on jurisprudence; for empire has ever a connection with the priesthood.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Character Connections Jurisprudence
I like peasants-they are not sophisticated enough to reason speciously.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Enough Reason Sophisticated
Vitam Impendere Vero (I consecrate my life to truth).
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Consecrate Impendere Life Truth
No kingdom has shed more blood than the kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Blood Kingdoms Philosophical
Thus the creation, which seems an arbitrary act, supposes laws as invariable as those of the fatality of the Atheists. It would be absurd to say that the Creator might govern the world without those rules, since without them it could not subsist.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Atheism Atheist Law
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
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Commerce Communication People

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.

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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.

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