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It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

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
Men
Necessary
Deceiver
Color
Dupes
Simple
Hypocrite
Nature
Prince
Wells
Immediate
Well
Yield
Much
Necessity
Never
Lack

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Violence must be inflicted once for all people will then forget what it tastes like and so be less resentful. Benefits must be conferred gradually and in that way they will taste better.
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To keep your actions and your plans secret always has been a very good thing . .. Marcus Crassus said to one who asked him when he was going to move the army: 'Do you believe that you will be the only one not to hear the trumpet?
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God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
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Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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No one should therefore fear that he cannot accomplish what others have accomplished, for, men are born, live, and die in quite the same way they always have.
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Good order and discipline in any army are to be depended upon more than courage alone.
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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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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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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.
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...the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
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We must distinguish between those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing when, however, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered.
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Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it.
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You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.
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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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The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
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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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And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
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