Цитаты из книги автора Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince

you wish to please me, and to bring success and honour to yourself, do right and study, because others will help you if you help yourself."

one change al­ways leaves the tooth­ing for an­other.

Francesco Sforza

Lorenzo Di Piero De’ Medici

the Duke of Fer­rara

Upon this, one has to re­mark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, be­cause they can avenge them­selves of lighter in­jur­ies, of more ser­i­ous ones they can­not; there­fore the in­jury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of re­venge.

I say at once there are fewer dif­fi­culties in hold­ing hered­it­ary states, and those long ac­cus­tomed to the fam­ily of their prince, than new ones; for it is suf­fi­cient only not to trans­gress the cus­toms of his an­cest­ors, and to deal prudently with cir­cum­stances as they arise, for a prince of av­er­age powers to main­tain him­self in his state, un­less he be de­prived of it by some ex­traordin­ary and ex­cess­ive force; and if he should be so de­prived of it, whenever any­thing sin­is­ter hap­pens to the usurper, he will re­gain it.

he who is the cause of an­other be­com­ing power­ful is ruined; be­cause that pre­dom­in­ancy has been brought about either by as­tute­ness or else by force, and both are dis­trus­ted by him who has been raised to power.

This will turn out well for you, but it is ne­ces­sary for you to study; since, then, you have no longer the ex­cuse of ill­ness, take pains to study let­ters and mu­sic, for you see what hon­our is done to me for the little skill I have.

their chief aim was to ap­pear well dressed and to speak with wit and acute­ness, whilst he