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 MACHIAVELLIHe who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
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I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
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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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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.
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He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
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Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
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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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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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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
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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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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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Politics have no relation to morals.
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Benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI