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"For love is supported by a bond of obligation which, since men are evil, they break on any occasion when it
is useful for them to do so; but fear is supported by a dread of retribution which can always be counted on."
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 17, Trans. James B Atkinson, 1513.

Warframe — We All Lift Together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPTCq3LiZSE

"Nothing shows men's vanity better than considering the cause and effects of love, for the whole universe is changed by it. 
Cleopatra's nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered."
[« Rien ne montre mieux la vanité des hommes que de considerer quelle cause et quels effets de l’amour,
car tout l’univers en est changé. Le nez de Cleopatre s’il eust esté plus court toute la face de la terre auroit changé. »]
Pascal, Thoughts (Pensées), #162.

"Cromwell was about to ravage all Christendom; the royal family was lost, and his own established forever,
save for a little grain of sand getting into his bladder. Even Rome was about to tremble under him. But this
small piece of gravel having formed there, he died, his family cast down, all is peaceful, and the king is restored."
[« Cromwell allait ravager toute la Chrétienté; la famille royale étoit perdue, et la sienne à jamais puissante
sans un petit grain de sable qui se mit dans son uretère. Rome même allait trembler sous lui; mais ce petit
gravier s’étant mis là, il est mort, sa famille abaissée, tout en paix et le roi rétabli. »]
Pascal, Thoughts, #176 [Les copies: « ... séparé, mis là ; » disent un non-sens. (Copies writ: "separate," are nonsense.)]

NEFFEX — Damn Gurl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxsS8AOCrZ0

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour."
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, The Pickering Manuscript, 1803.

A2 plays the opposite of 2B's Agon, Alea or chance: a resignation of will with abandonment to destiny. Devola climbs atop 9S.

"Pascal does not convince me, when he makes decisive Cleopatra's nose and the grain of sand in Cromwell's urethra."
[« Pascal ne me convainc pas, quand il fait décisifs le nez de Cléopâtre et le grain de sable dans l'urètre de Cromwell. »]
Roger Caillois, Post-scriptum, Pontius Pilate, 1962.