We Are Not By Nature Cruel.

And Anyway, I Suspect He Secretly Liked It When A Woman Was Cold And Distant

Machiavelli Says That If As A Ruler You Accept That Your Every Action Must Pass Moral Scrutiny, You Will Without Fail Be Defeated By An Opponent Who Submits To No Such Moral Test. To Hold On To Power, You Have Not Only To Master The Crafts Of Deception And Treachery But To Be Prepared To Use Them Where Necessary.

Temperament Is Fixed, Set. The Skull, Followed By The Temperament: The Two Hardest Parts Of The Body. Follow Your Temperament. It Is Not A Philosophy, It Is A Rule, Like The Rule Of St Benedict.

It’s Admirable, What You Do, What She Does, But To Me Animal-welfare People Are A Bit Like Christians Of A Certain Kind. Everyone Is So Cheerful And Well-intentioned That After A While You Itch To Go Off And Do Some Raping And Pillaging. Or To Kick A Cat.

Scapegoating Worked In Practice While It Still Had Religious Powers Behind It. You Loaded The Sins Of The City On To The Goat’s Back And Drove It Out, And The City Was Cleansed. It Worked Because Everyone Knew How To Read The Ritual, Including The Gods. Then The Gods Died, And All Of A Sudden You Had To Cleanse The City Without Divine Help. Real Actions Were Demanded Instead Of Symbolism The Censor Was Born, In The Roman Sense. Watchfulness Became The Watchword: The Watchfulness Of All Over All. Purgation Was Replaced By The Purge.