A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIIf an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man.
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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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This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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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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A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
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One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
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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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Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
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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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A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.
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Since 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.
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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.
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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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The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI