The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.
-- Machiavelli
At The Daily Beast, Asawin Suebsaeng, Maxwell Tani, Lloyd Grove report on Rudy Giuliani's comments about the crimes of Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.
“Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed… This was not a big crime,” Giuliani told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. He added, sardonically, “I think in two weeks they’ll start with parking tickets that haven’t been paid.”Giuliani was not always so dismissive of the rule of law.
- "Well, I very much subscribe to the "Broken Windows" theory, a theory that was developed by Professors Wilson and Kelling, 25 years ago maybe. The idea of it is that you had to pay attention to small things, otherwise they would get out of control and become much worse. And that, in fact, in a lot of our approach to crime, quality of life, social programs, we were allowing small things to get worse rather than dealing with them at the earliest possible stage." -- interview, July 29, 2004
- "We're tied together because we respect human life. We're tied together because we respect the rule of law. Those are the group of ideas that make us Americans." farewell address, December 27, 2001.
- "Our belief in democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human life -- that's how you become an American...The best long-term deterrent and approach to terrorism, obviously, is the spread of the principles of freedom and democracy and the rule of law and respect for human life." -- UN speech, October 1, 2001.
- "Tickets help," Giuliani told the Daily News. "Just like disorder and littering can become contagious the way you see other people do it and you do it, the opposite effect can happen." NY Daily News, 1/24/99
