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38“So much for these things. And I counsel you never to make full use of your power against your subjects as a body, nor to consider it any curtailment of your power if you do not actually put into effect all the measures you are in a position to enforce; but the greater your ability to do all you desire, the more eager you should be to desire in all things only what it is fitting you should desire. 2Always question your own heart in private whether it is right or not to do a given thing, and what you should do or refrain from doing to cause men to love you, with the purpose of doing the one and avoiding the other. For do not imagine that men will think you are doing your duty if only you hear no word of censure passed upon you; neither must you expect that any man will so abandon his senses as to reproach you openly for anything you do. 3No one will do this, no matter how flagrantly he has been wronged; on the contrary, many are compelled even to commend their oppressors in public, though they must struggle to keep from showing their resentment. But the ruler must get at the disposition of his subjects, not by what they say, but by what they in all likelihood think.
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