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 MACHIAVELLIWhere the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
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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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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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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Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
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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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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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Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
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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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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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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
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Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
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A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI