Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLISeverities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIPolitics have no relation to morals.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLINo enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThe more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIMen should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThe promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIWe cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIIt is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIThe 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 MACHIAVELLIThe one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLISo that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIIt is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIMen shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIIt 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 MACHIAVELLIBut when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI