His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThe fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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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 should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
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One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
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There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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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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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.
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One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
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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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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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But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
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It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
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Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI