But since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable for me to search after the effectual truth… - Niccolò Machiavelli
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But since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable for me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imagined one. Many writers have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen nor known to exist in reality. For there is such a distance between how one lives and how one ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done achieves his downfall rather than his preservation.
Niccolò Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, historian, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. Machiavelli was also a key figure in realist political theory, crucial to European statecraft during the Renaissance.
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Santi di Tito (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Native Name:
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Alternative Names:
Nicolas Machiavel
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Machiavel
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Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
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Niccolo Machiavelli
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Nicolò Machiavelli
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Nicolo Machiavelli
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Machiavelli
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N. Machiavelli
Le più caritative persone che sieno sono le donne, e le più fastidiose. Chi le scaccia, fugge e fastidii e l'utile; chi le intrattiene, ha l'utile ed e fastidii insieme. Ed è 'l vero che non è el mele sanza le mosche.
Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be — and are ruined.
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The gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.
