A mixed feeling, something in between physical fear and aristocratic despice is inevitable, when one lives in fragile Venice and a menacing brutal monster enters the Canal Grande, offering the narrow strees and the delicate mosaics that pave its churches and palaces to the newly enriched masses of global tourism.
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On Torture, On the Punishment of Death
In every human society, there is an effort continually tending to confer on one part the height of power and happiness, and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness and misery.
The intent of good laws is to oppose this effort, and to diffuse their influence universally and equally.
But men generally abandoned the care of their most important concerns to the uncertain prudence and discretion of those whose interest it is to reject the best and wisest institutions; and it is not till they have been led into a thousand mistakes in matters the most essential to their lives and liberties, and are […]