#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

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

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

Stupidity trumps Machiavelli almost every time when you are looking for an explanation. ↗

— Robert Foster Bennett

#every #every time #explanation #looking #machiavelli