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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.

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
Speaking
Generally
Men
Covetous
Hypocritical
Ungrateful
Fickle
Fearful

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When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.
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Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.
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Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
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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.
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Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.
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There are three kinds of brains. The one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others.
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There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
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Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
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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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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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When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment when they are then led to war, with hope and reward.
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The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
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For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm.
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If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
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A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline because that is the only art befitting one who commands.
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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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Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.
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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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There are three kinds of brains: One understands of itself, another can be taught to understand, and the third can neither understand to itself or be taught to understand.
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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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