#machiavelli

Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith. ↗

— Lord Acton

#discussion #faith #good #good faith #government

In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#follows #foreign #foreign policy #hangs #independence

BILLY: Did you ever watch Star Trek? MACHIAVELLI: Do I look like I watch Star Trek? BILLY: It's hard to tell who's a Trekkie. MACHIAVELLI: Billy, I ran one of the most sophisticated secret service organizations in the world. I did not have time for Star Trek. (pause) I was more of a Star Wars fan. Why do you ask? BILLY: Well, when Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock beamed down to a planet, usually with Dr. McCoy and sometimes with Scotty from engineering... MACHIAVELLI: Wait a minute--what's Mr. Spock again? BILLY: A Vulcan. MACHIAVELLI: His rank. BILLY: The first officer. MACHIAVELLI: So the captain, the first officer, the ship's doctor, and sometimes the engineer all beam down to a planet. Together. The entire complement of the senior officers? BILLY: (nods) MACHIAVELLI: And who has command of the ship? BILLY: (shrug) I don't know. Junior officers, I guess. MACHIAVELLI: If they worked for me I'd have them court-martialed. That sounds like a gross dereliction of duty. BILLY: I know. I always thought it was a little odd myself. ↗

— Michael Scott

#enchantress #getting-to-the-point #machiavelli #off-topic #star-trek

Machiavelli taught me it was better to be feared than loved. Because if you are loved they sense you might be weak. I am a man of the people and help them but it is important to do so through strength. ↗

— Don King

#because #better #feared #help #i

Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook, never takes its sophistries seriously, but only its practical aims, which are concealed beneath these sophistries. Political rhetoric and sophistries do not exist, after all, in order that they be believed; rather, they have to serve as a common and agreed upon alibi. Foolish people who take them in earnest sooner or later discover inconsistencies in them, begin to protest, and finish finally and infamously as heretics and apostates. No, too much faith never brings anything good... ↗

— Milan Kundera

#dogma #faith #history #machiavellian #moderation

Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful. ↗

— Niccolò Machiavelli

#machiavelli #power #faith

When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world. ↗

— Niccolò Machiavelli

#reading #death

Do I look like I watch Star Trek? ↗

— Michael Scott

#machiavelli #star-trek #funny

[...] the state is not immoral but amoral; half of it exists outside morality ↗

— Jacques Barzun

#the-prince #life

[The prince] dare not let ethics keep him from doing whatever evil must be done to preserve himself and the state. ↗

— Jacques Barzun

#the-prince #life