"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."
"The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow."
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Source: Niccolo Machiavelli (1979). “The Portable Machiavelli”, p.87, Penguin
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