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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.

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
Free
Forty
Less
Gun
Lost
Although
Sparta
Political
Eight
Disarmed
States
Citizens
Liberties
Many
Hundred
Remained
Years
Liberty
Armed
Time
Four
Rome

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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
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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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Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.
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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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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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Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.
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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
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the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.
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....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.
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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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Benefits should be conferred gradually and in that way they will taste better.
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One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
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Forgiveness proceeds from a generous soul.
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So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.
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Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.
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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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