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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

Niccolo Machiavelli

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Niccolo Machiavelli
Age: 58 †
Born: 1469
Born: May 3
Died: 1527
Died: June 22
Diplomat
Historian
Military Theorist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Political Theorist
Politician
Translator
Writer
Florence
Tuscany
Nicolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Nicolò Machiavelli
N. Machiavelli
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Machiavelli
Heavy
Hairstyles
Ones
Injuries
Either
Hustle
Literature
Slight
Cannot
Injury
Take
Revenge
Men
Destroyed
Treated
Generously

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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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Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.
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And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.
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How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
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No one should therefore fear that he cannot accomplish what others have accomplished, for, men are born, live, and die in quite the same way they always have.
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Therefore the best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses they will not save you if you are hated by the people.
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Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself another which appreciates what others comprehend and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.
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One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Men are less hesitant about harming someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared because love is held together by a chain of obligation which, since men are wretched creatures, is broken on every occasion in which their own interests are concerned but fear is sustained by dread of punishment which will never abandon you.
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Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.
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Hence it happened that all the armed prophets conquered, all the unarmed perished. [It., Di qui nacque che tutti li profeti armati vincero, e li disarmati rovinarono.]
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....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.
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For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves
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...the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
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Men ought either to be well treated, or crushed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.
Niccolo Machiavelli