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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
Ordinary
Failing
Achieve
Means
Often
Mean
Impetuosity
Audacity
Fail

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The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.
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By the delusions of seeming good the people are often misled to desire their own ruin and they are frequently influenced by great hopes and brave promises.
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But in Republics there is a stronger vitality, a fiercer hatred, a keener thirst for revenge. The memory of their former freedom will not let them rest so that the safest course is either to destroy them, or to go and live in them.
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The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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And it will always happen that he who is not your friend will request your neutrality and he who is your friend will ask you to declare yourself by taking up arms. And irresolute princes, in order to avoid present dangers, follow the neutral road most of the time, and most of the time they are ruined.
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Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
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With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
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I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness.
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Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.
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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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He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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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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For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
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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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People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.
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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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It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman.
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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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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
Niccolo Machiavelli