It is much safer for the prince to be feared than loved, but he ought to avoid making himself hated.
Niccolo MachiavelliMen are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
Niccolo MachiavelliA multitude is strong while it holds together, but so soon as each of those who compose it begins ro think of his own private danger, it becomes weak and contemptible.
Niccolo MachiavelliThe 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 MachiavelliAnd what physicians say about disease is applicable here: that at the beginning a disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state; for by recognizing from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to the prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when, not having been recognized, they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure.
Niccolo Machiavelli