The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIIt is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
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His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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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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It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack 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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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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A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
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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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So that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
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No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
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God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
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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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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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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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI