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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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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
Past
Compared
Always
Desires
Easily
Cities
Present
Seen
Remote
Passion
Peoples
Desire
Passions

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Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.
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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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Never do your enemy a minor injury.
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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
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(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.
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For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.
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Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.
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Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively another understands so far as it is explained and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, and the third, altogether useless.
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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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Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.
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I'm not interested in preserving the status quo I want to overthrow it.
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The reformer has enemies in all who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.
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In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.
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Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.
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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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For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.
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The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers.
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We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
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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.
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