One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit...Love is a bond of ob… - Niccolò Machiavelli

But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you.

This is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.

Whence we may draw the general axiom, which never or rarely errs, that he who is the cause of another’s greatness is himself undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.