1469-1527, Italian Author, Statesman
Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Totalitarianism]

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Nations]

Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Punctuality]

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Virtue]

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.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Weapons]

The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Purpose]

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Promises]

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.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Greed]

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.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Intelligence and Intellectuals]

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [War]

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.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Leaders and Leadership]

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
Niccolo Machiavelli – [Will and Will Power]

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