The history of Florence ... together with The prince, and various historical tracts

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Page 484 - ... as that in which you now stand. You have justice on your side; their cause was not more lawful than yours, and the blessing of God will attend you no less than them. Every war that is necessary is just; and it is humanity to take up arms for the defence of a people to whom no other resource is left.
Page 130 - ... to sanctify with the false title of honest gains. Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty ; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor ; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind ; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry,...
Page xv - Prince, there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue or a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks that, since it was...
Page xix - Machiavelli was of middle stature, rather thin, and of olive complexion. He was gay in conversation, obliging with his friends, and fond of the arts. He had readiness of wit ; and it is related of him that, being reproved for the maxims of his "Prince," be replied, "If I taught princes how to tyrannize, I also taught the people how to destroy them.
Page 385 - ... of a thousand dead being left upon the field. The troops of the church were at length victorious, for her numerous infantry so annoyed the ducal cavalry, that they were compelled to retreat, and Alfonso himself would have fallen into the hands of the enemy, had he not been rescued by a body of Turks, who remained at Otranto, and were at that time in his service. The lord of...
Page xv - Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave — and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.
Page 459 - This doctrine is admirably displayed to us by the ancient poets in the allegorical history of the education of Achilles, and many other princes of antiquity, by the Centaur Chiron who, under the double form of man and beast, taught those who were destined to govern that it was their duty to use by turns the arms adapted to each of these species, seeing that one without the other cannot be of any durable advantage.
Page 379 - II, had gone with a large army to the siege of Rhodes, and continued it for several months ; but though his forces were numerous, and his courage indomitable, he found them more than equalled by those of the besieged, who resisted his attack with such obstinate valour that he was at last compelled to retire in disgrace. Having left Rhodes, part of his army, under the pasha...
Page 135 - Signory and the Colleagues of their magistracy, and burned the balloting purses containing the names of those eligible to office under the former government. In the meantime, Ser Nuto, being brought by the mob into the court, was suspended from the gallows by one foot ; and those around having torn him to pieces, in little more than a moment nothing remained of him but the foot by which he had been tied.

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