Brendan’s Reviews > Discourses on Livy > Status Update
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“Men are wont to worry in evil and to become bored with good, and from both of these two passions the same effects arise. For whenever engaging in combat through necessity is taken from men, they engage in combat through ambition, which is so powerful in human breasts that it never abandons them at whatever rank they rise to. The cause is that nature has created men so that they are able to desire everything and
— 6 hours, 22 min ago
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Brendan
is on page 49 of 367
“For as good customs have need of laws to maintain themselves, so laws have need of good customs so as to be observed.”
“This makes new laws insufficient because the orders, which remain fixed, corrupt them.”
— May 27, 2026 08:14PM
“This makes new laws insufficient because the orders, which remain fixed, corrupt them.”
Brendan
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“For a prudent individual knows many goods that do not have in themselves evident reasons with which one can persuade others. This wise men who wish to take away this difficulty have recourse to God.”
— May 26, 2026 09:14PM
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and unable to attain everything. So, since the desire is always greater than the power of acquiring, the result is discontent with what one possesses and a lack of satisfaction with it. From this arises the variability of their fortune; for since some men desire to have more, and some fear to lose what has been acquired, they come to enmities and to war, from which arise the in of one province and exaltation of another.”
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Cf. Our current plutocrats, who continue to bicker and strive for more wealth, influence, and power despite having infinite resources and numerous toadies (including elite academics and politicians) already at their disposal. Their hearts are sieves, never to be satisfied by anything in this world — and it is not enough for them to have so much; everyone else must have *nothing*. We all pay the price for their internal disquiet. Machiavelli would’ve seen right through them.
