Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action.
Niccolo MachiavelliIt is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
Niccolo MachiavelliBenefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.
Niccolo MachiavelliMany have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.
Niccolo Machiavelli