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How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

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
Way
Studies
Ought
Study
Rather
Learn
Live
Done
Downfall
Different
Preservation

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So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
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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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A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.
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With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
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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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Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.
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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.
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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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Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.
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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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It is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved? It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
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as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure
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It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather.
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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
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Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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The 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.
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He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
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