“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.”
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The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
