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When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor.

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
Expected
Greater
Benefactor
War
Favours
Art
Benefactors
Someone
Favour
Men
Ill
Receive
Obligation

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(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.
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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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Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
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From this arises the question whether 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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The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
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I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.
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The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.
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Is it better to be loved or feared?
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If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.
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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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Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.
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Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
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It is the duty of a man of honor to teach others the good which he has not been able to do himself because of the malignity of the times, that this good finally can be done by another more loved in heaven.
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In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second.
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We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean the rest have failed.
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A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.
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For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
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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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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.
Niccolo Machiavelli