Note 3 — Chapter IV · THE NEW MORALISTS
Reading edition
"That must not hinder us from declaring joyfully that the gifted Florentine, with all the vast consequence of his thinking, was the first to set in the centre of all politics the great thought: The State is power. For that is the truth; and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face ought to keep his hands off politics."—Ibid. p. 28.