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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.

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
Keep
Delegates
Art
Princes
Others
Unpopular
Hands
Measures
Mean
Favour
Winning
Enactment
War
Favours
Means
Delegate

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There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
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The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
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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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Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.
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Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.
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Forgiveness proceeds from a generous soul.
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Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.
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It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.
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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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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.
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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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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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All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.
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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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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.
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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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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.
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A multitude is strong while it holds together, but so soon as each of those who compose it begins ro think of his own private danger, it becomes weak and contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli