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Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.

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
Better
Profit
Life
Fortune
Principalities
Meet
Republics
Longer
Emergencies
Democracy
Internals
Greater
Internal
Enjoy
Republic
Able
Diversity

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The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.
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Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.
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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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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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One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.
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All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.
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You know better than I that in a Republic talent is always suspect. A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else's self-esteem.
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A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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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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Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively another understands so far as it is explained and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, and the third, altogether useless.
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It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
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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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The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.
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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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How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.
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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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Thus it happens in matters of state for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.
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A prince is also respected when he is a true friend and a true enemy that is, when he declares himself on the side of one prince against another without any reservation.
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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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With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
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