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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLINature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
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It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
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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.
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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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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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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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So that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
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A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
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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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This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
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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 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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Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
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Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
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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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI