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Quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli
- The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
- The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
- The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
- The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
- 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.
- There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
- There is no avoiding war it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
- There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
- There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
- To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
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