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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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One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
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Laa shay'a waqi'un moutlaq bale kouloun moumkine...We work in the Dark, to serve the Light.
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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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Men ought either to be well treated, or crushed.
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And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.
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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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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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Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.
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You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity...servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes...and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.
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The prince who relies upon their words, without having otherwise provided for his security, is ruined for friendships that are won by awards, and not by greatness and nobility of soul, although deserved, yet are not real, and cannot be depended upon in time of adversity.
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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
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For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying
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Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
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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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Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.
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The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
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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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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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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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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.
Niccolo Machiavelli