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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.

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
First
Third
Intuitively
Different
Thirds
Capacities
Men
Neither
Explained
Capacity
Altogether
Second
Understands
Three
Explanation
Another
Excellent
Firsts
Useless
Commendable

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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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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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The peasant wants only to be left alone to prosper in peace.
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There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
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Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
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The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
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One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
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I hope and hoping feeds my pain I weep and weeping feeds my failing heart I laugh but the laughter does not pass within I burn but the burning makes no mark outside.
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.
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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud
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War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
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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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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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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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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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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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Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
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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.
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