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

    Niccolo Machiavelli: The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.
    "Discourses on Livy" by Niccolò Machiavelli, book 2, ch. 3, translation by Mansfield and Tarcov, 1517.