I send you a present which if it is not equal to the obligations that I have toward you, it is one which without doubt the best that Niccolo Machiavelli has been able to offer you. Because in it I have expressed what I know and what I have learned through a long experience and a continuing study of the things of the world. And neither you nor others being able to desire more of me, I have not offered you more. You may well complain of the poverty of my endeavor since these narrations of mine are poor, and of the fallacy of [my] judgement when I deceive myself in many parts of my discussion.