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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThere 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.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
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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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No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
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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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The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
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Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
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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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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.
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It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
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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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It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
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If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
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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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One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
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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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI






