The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
Never was anything great achieved without danger.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
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 -
Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
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 -
Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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 -
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 -
There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
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