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Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.

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
Failing
Achieve
Means
Often
Mean
Impetuosity
Audacity
Fail
Ordinary

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For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.
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Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
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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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One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
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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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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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I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking.
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Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.
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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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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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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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For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit.
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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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Therefore, in order not to have to rob his subjects, to be able to defend himself, not to become poor and contemptible, and not to be forced to become rapacious, a prince must consider it of little importance if he incurs the name of miser, for this is one of the vices that permits him to rule.
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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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How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
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When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.
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The world has always been the same and there is always as much good fortune as bad in it.
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Benefits should be conferred gradually and in that way they will taste better.
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
Niccolo Machiavelli