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All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.

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
Suffering
Ambition
Sloth
Action
Danger
Prudence
Make
Strength
Bold
Things
Risk
Avoiding
Mistake
Suffer
Impossible
Develop
Decisively
Courses
Mistakes
Calculating
Acting
Greatness
Risky

More quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli

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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.
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Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively another understands so far as it is explained and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, and the third, altogether useless.
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To know well the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to know well the nature of princes one must be of the people.
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So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.
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Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women.
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It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent.
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There is nothing so difficult or so dangerous as to undertake to change the order of things.
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In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.
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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
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With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
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Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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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
Niccolo Machiavelli
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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
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To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.
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And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will request your neutrality and he who is your friend will ask you to declare yourself by taking up arms. And irresolute princes, in order to avoid present dangers, follow the neutral road most of the time, and most of the time they are ruined.
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Thus it happens in matters of state for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.
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.
Niccolo Machiavelli