“The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.”

—  Niccolo Machiavelli , book Discourses on Livy

Book 2, Ch. 3 (translation by Mansfield and Tarcov)
Discourses on Livy (1517)

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Niccolo Machiavelli 130
Italian politician, Writer and Author 1469–1527

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