"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."
"I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves."
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Source: Discourses on Livy by Niccolò Machiavelli, book 2, ch. 29, as translated by LJ Walker and B Crick, 1517.
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