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The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.

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
Loss
Force
War
Art
Flee
Diminished
Adversaries
Killed
Forces

More quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli

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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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A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
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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 are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
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God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried.
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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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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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States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications the first bad weather kills them
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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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I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking.
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For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.
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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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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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Therefore, in order not to have to rob his subjects, to be able to defend himself, not to become poor and contemptible, and not to be forced to become rapacious, a prince must consider it of little importance if he incurs the name of miser, for this is one of the vices that permits him to rule.
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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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Many have dreamed up republics and principalities that have never in truth been known to exist the gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.
Niccolo Machiavelli