Men Lived Like Fishes; The Great Ones

Tis Hard To Comprehend How One Man Can Come To Be Master Of Many, Equal To Himself In Right, Unless It Be By Consent Or By Force.

[a]ll Popular And Well-mixed Governments [republics] . . . Are Ever Established By Wise And Good Men, And Can Never Be Upheld Otherwise Than By Virtue: The Worst Men Always Conspiring Against Them, They Must Fall, If The Best Have Not Power To Preserve Them. . . . [and] Unless They Be Preserved In A Great Measure Free From Vices . . . .

If His Majesty Is Resolved To Have My Head, He May Make A Whistle Of My Arse If He Pleases.

Machiavel, Discoursing On These Matters, Finds Virtue To Be So Essentially Necessary To The Establishment And Preservation Of Liberty, That He Thinks It Impossible For A Corrupted People To Set Up A Good Government, Or For A Tyranny To Be Introduced If They Be Virtuous; And Makes This Conclusion, 'that Where The Matter (that Is, The Body Of The People) Is Not Corrupted, Tumults And Disorders Do Not Hurt; And Where It Is Corrupted, Good Laws Do No Good:' Which Being Confirmed By Reason And Experience, I Think No Wise Man Has Ever Contradicted Him.

God Leaves To Man The Choice Of Forms In Government; And Those Who Constitute One Form, May Abrogate It.