"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."
"It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline."
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Source: Florentine Histories by Niccolò Machiavelli, book V, chapter 1, 1526.
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