When Niccolò Machiavelli was exiled from his native Florence and forced to live in the countryside among rubes and rednecks, he admitted that he was prone to get into pointless arguments with said rubes and rednecks, but at the end of the day he could do this: When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them lovingly, I feed on the food that alone is mine and that I was
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