Niccolò Machiavelli | The Prince ⚔️

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Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

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

There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.

Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.

All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.

One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.

A battle that you win cancels all your mistakes.

I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.