But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
So that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI