For Imagining Lies Within Our Power Whenever

There Is An Error Common To Both Oligarchies And To Democracies: In The Latter The Demagogues, When The Multitude Are Above The Law, Are Always Cutting The City In Two By Quarrels With The Rich, Whereas They Should Always Profess To Be Maintaining Their Cause; Just As In Oligarchies The Oligarchs Should Profess To Maintain The Cause Of The People, . .

Purpose ... Is Held To Be Most Closely Connected With Virtue, And To Be A Better Token Of Our Character Than Are Even Our Acts.

Just As A Royal Rule, If Not A Mere Name, Must Exist By Virtue Of Some Great Personal Superiority In The King, So Tyranny, Which Is The Worst Of Governments, Is Necessarily The Farthest Removed From A Well-constituted Form; Oligarchy Is Little Better, For It Is A Long Way From Aristocracy, And Democracy Is The Most Tolerable Of The Three.

If, Therefore, There Is Any One Superior In Virtue And In The Power Of Performing The Best Actions, Him We Ought To Follow And Obey, But He Must Have The Capacity For Action As Well As Virtue.

Some Things The Legislator Must Find Ready To His Hand In A State, Others He Must Provide. And Therefore We Can Only Say: May Our State Be Constituted In Such A Manner As To Be Blessed With The Goods Of Which Fortune Disposes (for We Acknowledge Her Power): Whereas Virtue And Goodness In The State Are Not A Matter Of Chance But The Result Of Knowledge And Purpose. A City Can Be Virtuous Only When The Citizens Who Have A Share In The Government Are Virtuous, And In Our State All The Citizens Share In The Government.