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Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

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
Great
Tries
Trying
Ruins
Good
Bound
Men
Bounds
Time
Number
Among
Numbers
Come
Ruin

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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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The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.
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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 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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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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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
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He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
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In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.
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For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.
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There are three kinds of brains: One understands of itself, another can be taught to understand, and the third can neither understand to itself or be taught to understand.
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Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.
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Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.
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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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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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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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Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves
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One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.
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There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed.
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as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure
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There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
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