Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIWhen you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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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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Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
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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.
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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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The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
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A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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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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Before all else, be armed.
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The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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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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When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
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For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.
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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 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 MACHIAVELLI