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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.

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
Government
Armed
Trusted
Citizens
Trust
Doe

More quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli

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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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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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The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
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The ends justifies the means.
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For whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great Error, and may expect to be ruin 'd himself.
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If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.
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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
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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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It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.
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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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We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean the rest have failed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Besides what has been said, people are fickle by nature and it is a simple to convince them of something but difficult to hold them in that conviction and, therefore, affairs should be managed in such a way that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Many have dreamed up republics and principalities that have never in truth been known to exist the gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.
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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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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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If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.
Niccolo Machiavelli