Before all else, be armed.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIBut when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.
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The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.
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His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
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The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned.
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War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
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A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
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The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
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Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate.
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Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
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The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
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There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
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This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI