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Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

Work

The Prince

The Prince is a seminal work in the field of political science, offering a pragmatic and often ruthless analysis of how to acquire and maintain political power. It explores the nature of leadership, the role of the state, and the use of political strategies to achieve and maintain power. Machiavelli's observations are based on his experience and study of the political landscape of his time, including the rise and fall of various Italian city-states. more

Author

Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian historian, political theorist, and philosopher who lived during the Renaissance. He is best known for his book 'The Prince,' which delves into the concepts of power, political tactics, and the art of rule. more

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“You know, a landscape painter's day is delightful. You get up early, at three o'clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon... Ah, a first ray of sunshine!”

“Consider a cask filled with a highly compressed gas. If we open one of its taps the gas will escape through it in a continuous flow, the elasticity of the gas pushing its particles into space will continuously push the cask itself. The result will a continuous change in the motion of the cask. Given a sufficient number of taps (say, six), we would be able to regulate the outflow of the gas as we liked and the cask (or sphere) would describe any curved line in accordance with any law of velocities.”

“One: There is a low limit of weight [of about] 50 pounds beyond which it is impossible for an animal to fly. Two: The animal machine is far more effective than any we can hope to make. Three: The weight of any machine constructed for flying, including fuel and engineer, cannot be less than three or four hundred pounds. Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?”

“From my childhood it has been my conviction that men would reach the planets in my lifetime . . . this conviction . . . rests on two beliefs, one scientific and one political: (1) there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our present-day science. And we shall only find out what they are if we go out and look for them. (2) it is in the long run essential to the growth of any new and high civilization that small groups of people can escape from their neighbors and from their governments, to go and live as they please in the wilderness.”