No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
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.
A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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.
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
War is just when it is necessary arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.
The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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.
Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
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.
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.
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.