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Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself for that power is produced by him either through craft or force and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power.

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
Cause
Becoming
Suspected
Either
Ruined
Causes
Craft
Powerful
Crafts
Force
Produced
Another
Whoever
Power
Raised

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People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.
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It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent.
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For whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great Error, and may expect to be ruin 'd himself.
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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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Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.
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The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
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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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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
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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.
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There is no avoiding war it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
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Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.
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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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It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline.
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There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.
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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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Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.
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All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.
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As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity.
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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
Niccolo Machiavelli