Quite a Quote!

“When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not fear poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely. And because Dante says that no one understands anything unless he retains what he has understood, I have jotted down what I have profited from in their conversation and composed a short study, De Princi- patibus, in which I delve as deeply as I can into the ideas concerning this topic, discussing the definition of the princedom, the categories of prince- doms, how they are acquired, how they are retained, and why they are lost.”
—Niccolo Machiavelli in a letter to his friend Francesco Vettori.