But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThis first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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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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Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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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.
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It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
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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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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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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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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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One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
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It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
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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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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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To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI