"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."
"Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals."
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Source: Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius. Book by Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Allan Gilbert, book 1, chapter 18, p. 241, 1965.
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