Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
Niccolo MachiavelliFor government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm.
Niccolo MachiavelliA man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.
Niccolo MachiavelliTherefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.
Niccolo Machiavelli