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A prince is also respected when he is a true friend and a true enemy that is, when he declares himself on the side of one prince against another without any reservation.

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
Enemy
Another
True
Reservation
Also
Declares
Without
Respected
Prince
Friend
Side

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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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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.
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The world has always been the same and there is always as much good fortune as bad in it.
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One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
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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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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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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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For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
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For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit.
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Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
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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.
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How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
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Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.
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For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying
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One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.
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The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.
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The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
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We must distinguish between those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing when, however, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered.
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