"Machiavelli belongs to that series of minds, and some of them much greater than himself, which through modern times have endeavored to unmask the human being. . . . Yet in unmasking the human being he maimed its very flesh and wounded its eyes. To have thoroughly rejected ethics, metaphysics and theology from the realm of political knowledge and political prudence is his very own accomplishment, and it is also the most violent mutilation suffered by the human practical intellect and the organism of practical wisdom."
-Jacques Maritain, "The End of Machiavellainsim." The Review of Politics IV (1942)
The Party of Reticence must make use of this one. In human affairs, an attempt to "unmask" is often practically the same as defacing.
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