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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.

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
Happen
Avoid
Irresolute
Asks
Road
Princes
Order
Follow
Neutrality
Happens
Danger
Neutral
Always
Arms
Dangers
Time
Taking
Request
Friend
Declare
Present
Ruined

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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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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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Cruelties should be committed all at once.
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The peasant wants only to be left alone to prosper in peace.
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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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Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.
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Violence must be inflicted once for all people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful. Benefits must be conferred gradually and in that way they will taste better.
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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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Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.
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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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To know well the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to know well the nature of princes one must be of the people.
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With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
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The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.
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For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
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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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Hence it happened that all the armed prophets conquered, all the unarmed perished. [It., Di qui nacque che tutti li profeti armati vincero, e li disarmati rovinarono.]
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...the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
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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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