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Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

Baron de Montesquieu

I have read descriptions of Paradise that would make any sensible person stop wanting to go there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Description Paradise Sensible
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Freedom Wells
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
Solemnity is the shield of idiots
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Idiot Shields Stupidity
When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it and avarice possesses the whole community.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Ambition Community Mind
Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Government Liberty Political
The life of man is but a succession of vain hopes and groundless fears.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Men Succession Vain
Life was given to me as a favor, so I may abandon it when it is one no longer.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Favors Given May
The less men think, the more they talk.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Deed Majority Men
Republics are brought to their ends by luxury; monarchies by poverty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Luxury Poverty Republic
[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
It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Defense Men Reason
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
The reason the Romans built their great paved highways was because they had such inconvenient footwear.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Highway Philosophical Reason
The state is the association of men, and not men themselves; the citizen may perish, and the man remain.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens Men Society
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
Very good laws may be ill timed.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

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

Luxury Perfect Republic
Virtue has needs of limits.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Limits Needs Virtue
When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Manners Want
Honor is unknown in despotic states.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despotism Honor States
Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against all the disappointments of life. I have never known any trouble that an hour’s reading would not dissipate.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Disappointment Reading Sovereign
Mediocrity is a hand-rail.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Confidence Hands Mediocrity
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens Men Naked
I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Book Suffering Writing
Lunch kills half of Paris, supper the other half.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Lunch Paris Philosophical

Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

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Coffee renders many foolish people temporarily capable of wise actions

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