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It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman.

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
Fortune
Woman
Better
Adventurous
Cautious

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One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather.
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I hold it to be of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you
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So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.
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God creates men, but they choose each other.
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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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In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.
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as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure
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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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When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
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The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
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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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When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor.
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Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.
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It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.
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If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.
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Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: What course will save the life and liberty of the country?
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it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
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