Diet of bankrupts... To-day, Messer Paolo is to visit me, and tomorrow there will be the cardinal; and thus they think to befool me, at their pleasure. But I, on my side, am only dallying with them. I listen to all they have to say and bide my own time.

Cesare to Macchiavelli about his contempt for the Orsini (October, 1502), as quoted by Rafael Sabatini, 'The Life of Cesare Borgia', Chapter XV: Macchiavelli's Legation