"No well ordered republic allows the demerits of its citizens to be canceled out by their merits; but, having prescribed rewards for a good deed and punishments for a bad one, and having rewarded someone for doing well, if that same person afterwards does wrong, it punishes him, regardless of any of the good deeds he has done. And, when such ordinances are duly observed, the city long enjoys freedom, but otherwise will always be ruined. Because if a citizen who has rendered some signal service to the state, acquire thereby not merely the repute which the affair has brought him, but is emboldened to expect that he can do wrong with impunity, he will soon become so insolent that civic life in such a state will disappear."
-Machiavelli, The Discourses
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