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The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.

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
Change
Incredulity
Would
Lukewarm
Reformers
Defenders
Enemies
Profit
Enemy
Order
Reformer

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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.
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Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.
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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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For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.
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No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury.
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And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
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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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You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.
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A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.
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There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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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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To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.
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Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
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The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.
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I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness.
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The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
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For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
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Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: What course will save the life and liberty of the country?
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Whoever takes it upon himself to establish a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety.
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The ends justifies the means.
Niccolo Machiavelli