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So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.

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
Men
Deprived
Satisfied
Property
Majority
Honor
Either
Great
Long

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We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean the rest have failed.
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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
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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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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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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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Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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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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We must distinguish between those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing when, however, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered.
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Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
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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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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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To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.
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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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We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
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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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(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.
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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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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
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You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.
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