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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.

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
Subjects
Cause
Shall
Causes
Else
Controlling
Government
Consists
Able
Harm
Nothing
Neither

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Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.
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Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.
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Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.
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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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A wise ruler should rely on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others.
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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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Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.
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Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.
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Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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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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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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The innovator has for enemies all who have done well under the old, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
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Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.
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And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.
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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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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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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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Although deceit is detestable in all other things, yet in the conduct of war it is laudable and honorable and a commander who vanquishes an enemy by stratagem is equally praised with one who gains victory by force.
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And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.
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