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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIMen should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.
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It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
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There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
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One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
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Politics have no relation to morals.
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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 are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
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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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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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I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
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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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI