Quotes to write by 1.

From Niccolo Machiavelli’s letter to the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici in presenting his The Prince:

Nor I hope will it be considered presumptuous for a man of low and humble status to dare discuss and lay down the law about how princes should rule; because, just as men who are sketching the landscape put themselves down in the plain to study the nature of mountains and the highlands, and to study the low-lying land they put themselves high on the mountains, so, to comprehend fully the nature of the people, one must be a prince, and to comprehend fully the nature of princes one must be an ordinary citizen.

So, one might ask, how might we imagine today a new mirror of princes, and so open our minds to more encouraging ways of the governed and governing living with each other well?