Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLISince it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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Politics have no relation to morals.
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When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
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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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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.
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War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.
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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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Before all else, be armed.
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Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.
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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
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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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For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.
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One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
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There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
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There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI