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To usurp supreme and absolute authority in a free state and subject it
to
tyranny, the people must have already become corrupt by gradual steps
from generation to generation. All states necessarily come to this,
unless they are frequently reinvigorated by good examples, and brought
back to their first principles.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Discources on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (1531) Second Book, Chapter VIII |
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