Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince
Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.
Thus the Romans, who could see troubles at a distance, always found remedies for them. They never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someon else's advantage.
Men almost always prefer to walk in paths marked out by others and pattern their actions through imitation.
And it is worth noting that nothing is harder to manage, more risky in the undertaking, or more doubtful of success than to set up as the introducer of a new order.
Cruelty can be described as well used (if it is permissible to say good words about something evil in itself) when it is performed all at once, for reasons of self-preservation; and when the acts are not repeated after that, but rather are turned as much as possible to the advantage of the subjects. Cruelty is badly used, when it is infrequent at first, but increases with time instead of diminishing.
We may add this note that when a prince takes a new state, he should calculate the sum of all the injuries he will have to do, and do them all at once, so as not to have to do new ones every day; simply by not repeating them, he will be able to reassure people, and win them over to his side with benefits.
... injuries should be committed all at once, because the less time there is to dwell on them, the less they offend; but benefits should be distributed very gradually, so the taste wil last longer.
When misfortune strikes, harsh measures are too late, and the good things you do are not counted to your credit because you seem to have acted under compulsion, and no one will than you for that.
The man who becomes prince with the help of the nobles has more trouble holding onto his power than the man who rises with the aid of the people, because as prince he is surrounded by many who think themselves his equals ...
In fact, the aim of the common people is more honest than that of the nobles, since the nobles want to oppress others, while the people simply want not to be oppressed.
... the prince must have the people well disposed toward him; otherwise in times of adversity there is no hope.
Indeed, men are so constructed that they feel themselves committed as much by the benefits they grant as by those they receive.
Any man who founds his state on mercenaries can never be safe or secure ...
Anyone who wants to make dead sure of not winning, then, had better make use of armies like these [troops of a foreign ruler, as opposed to mercenaries], since they are much more dangerous than mercenaries. In these you get your ruin ready-made; they come to yo a compact body, all trained to obey somebody else. Mercenaries after a victory need a little time and a better occasion before they attack you, since they are not a unified body, but a group of individuals picked and paid by you.
There is such a difference between the way we really live and the way we ought to live that the man who neglects the real to study the ideal will learn how to accomplish his ruin, not his salvation.
And furthermore, he should not be too worried about incurring blame for any vice without which he would find it hard to save his state.
... a reputation for liberality is doubtless very fine; but the generosity that earns you that reputation can do you great harm. For if you exercise your generosity in a really virtuous way, as you should, nobody will know of it, and you cannot escape the odium of the opposite vice. Hence if you wish to be widely known as a generous man, you must seize every opportunity to make a big display of your giving. A prince of this character is bound to use up his entire revenue in works of ostentation. In the end, if he wants to keep a name for generosity, he will have to load his people with exorbitant taxes and squeeze money out of them in every way he can.
... if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved. For it is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain.
... friendships that are bought at a price, and not with greatness and nobility of soul, may be paid for but they are not acquired, and they cannot be used in time of need. People are less concerned with offending a man who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared: the reason is that love is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.
When he does have to shed blood, he should be sure to have a strong justification and manifest cause; but above all, he should not confiscate people's property, because men are quicker to forget the death of a father than the loss of a patrimony.
I conclude that since men love at their own inclination but can be made to fear at the inclination of the prince, a shrewd prince will lay his foundations on what is under his own control, not on what is controlled by others. He should simply take pains not to be hated ...
Thus a prudent prince cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interest, or when the reasons that made him pledge it no loger apply. Doutless if all men were good, this rule would be bad; but since they are a sad lot, and keep no faith with you, you in your turn are under no obligation to keep it with them.
In the actions of all men, and especially of princes who are not subject to a court of appeal, we must always look to the end.
What makes the prince contemptible is being considered changeable, trifling, effeminate, cowardly, or indecisive; he should avoid this as a pilot does a reef, and make sure that his actions bespeak greatness, courage, seriousness of purpose, and strength.
... princes should delegate unpleasant jobs to other people and reserve the pleasant functions for themselves.
... it should be noted that hatred may be earned by doing good just as much as by doing evil;
... a prince should never ally himself with someone more powerful than himself in order to attack a third party, except in cases of absolute necessity.
The man who improves his holdings should not be made to fear that they will be taken away from him; the man who opens up a branch of trade should not have to fear that he will be taxed out of existence.
The first notion one gets of a prince's intelligence comes from the men around him; when they are able and loyal, you may be sure he is wise, because he knew enough to recognize ther ability and command their loyalty. When they are otherwise, you can always from a poor opinion of the prince, becaue he made an error in his very first choice.
For there is no way to protect yourself from flattery except by letting men know that you will not be offended at being told the truth. But when anyone can tell you the truth, you will not have much respect.
I conclude that the prince's wisdom does not come from having good policies recommended to him; on eht contrary, good policy, whoever suggests it, comes from the wisdom of the prince.
... so long as Fortune varies and men stand still, they will prosper while they suit the times, and fail when they do not. but I do feel this: that it is better to be rash than timid, for Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to hold her down must beat and bully her.
Madison, James. The Federalist Papers
But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distributions of property.
Experience is the oracle of truth.
The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on the one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; ...
Here, then, are three sources of vague and incorrect definitions; indistinctness of the object, imperfection of the organ of conception, inadequateness of the vehicle of ideas.
The prudent inquiry, in all cases, ought surely to be, not so much from whom the advice come, as whether the advice be good.
Bills of attainder, ex-post-facto laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.
What is the spirit that has in general characterized the proceedings of Congress? ... that the members have but too frequently displayed the character, rather of partisans of their respective states, than of impartial guardians of a common interest; that where on one occasion improper sacrifices have been made of local considerations, to the aggrandizement of the federal government, the great interests of the nation have suffered on a hundred, from an undue attention to the local prejudices, interests, and views of the particular States.
Manchester, William. A World Lit Only By Fire
In art the end has to justify the means, because artists, like beggars, have no choice.
Marquis, Don.
The most pleasant and useful persons are those who leave some of the problems of the universe for God to worry about.
Marx, Groucho.
Maugham, W. Somerset.
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses
Old vaquero: ... no creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold.
The duena: The names of the entities that have power to constrain us change with time. Convention and authority are replaced by infirmity. But my attitude toward them has not changed.
Perez: Americans have ideas sometimes that are not so
practical. They think that there are good things and bad things. They are very
superstitious, you know.
You dont think there's good and bad things?
Things no. I think it is a superstition. It is the superstition of a godless people.
You think Americans are godless?
Oh yes. Dont you?
No.
I see them attack their own property. I saw a man one time
destroy his car. With a big martillo. ... Because it would not start. Would a Mexican do
that?
I dont know.
A Mexican would not do that. The Mexican does not believe
that a car can be good or evil. If there is evil in the car he knows that to destroy the
car is to accomplish nothing. Because he knows where good and evil have their home. The
anglo thinks in his rare way that the Mexican is superstitious. But who is the one? We
know there are qualities to a thing. This car is green. Or it has a certain motor inside.
But it cannot be tainted, you see. Or a man. Even a man. There can be in a man some evil.
But we dont think it is his own evil. Where did he get it? How did he come to claim it?
No. Evil is a true thing in Mexico. It goes about on its own legs. Maybe some day it will
come to visit you. Maybe it already has.
It is the same with money. Americans have this problem
always I believe. They talk about tainted money. But money doesnt have this special
quality. And the Mexican would never think to make things special or to put them in a
special place where money is no use. Why do this? If money is good money is good. He
doesnt have bad money. He doesnt have this problem. This abnormal thought.
The duena: In the Spaniard's heart is a deep conviction that nothing can be proven except that it be made to bleed. Virgins, bulls, men. Ultimately God himself.
The duena: And I will never know what her life is. If
there is a pattern there it will not shape itself to anything these eyes can recognize.
Because the question for me was always whether that shape we see in our lives was there
from the beginning or whether these random events are only called a pattern after the
fact. Because otherwise we are nothing. Do you believe in fate?
Yes mam. I guess I do.
My father had a great sense of the connectedness of things.
... He claimed that the responsibility for a decision could never be abandoned to a blind
agency but could only be relegated to human decisions more and more remote from their
consequences. The example he gave was of a tossed coin that was at one time a slug in a
mint and of the coiner who took that slug from the tray and placed it in the die in one of
two ways and from whose act all else followed, cara y cruz. No matter through
whatever turnings nor how many of them. Till our turn comes at last and our turn passes.
The duena, telling how Gustavo spoke to her of her physical disfigurement: He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength and that they must make their way back into the common enterprise of man for without they do so it cannot go forward and they themselves will wither in bitterness.
The duena: That night I thought long and not without
despair about what must become of me. I wanted very much to be a person of value and I had
to ask myself how this could be possible if there were not something like a soul or like a
spirit that is in the life of a person and which could endure any misfortune or
disfigurement and yet be no less for it. If one were to be a person of value that value
could not be a condition subject to the hazards of fortune. It had to be a quality that
could not change. No matter what. Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to
discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it
was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came
easily.
I knew that courage came with less struggle for some than
for others but I believed that anyone who desired it could have it. That the desire was
the thing itself. The thing itself. I could think of nothing else of which that was true.
The duena: In the end we all come to be cured of our sentiments. Those whom life does not cure death will. The world is quite ruthless in selecting between the dream and the reality, even where we will not. Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting.
The duena: In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I dont believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God - who knows all that can be known - seems powerless to change.
John Grady: You wont let me make my case.
The duena: I know your case. Your case is that certain things happened over which you had
no control.
It's true.
I'm sure it is. But it's no case. I've no sympathy with
people to whom things happen. It may be that their luck is bad, but is that to count in
their favor?
The duena: Sometimes I think we are all like that myopic coiner at his press, taking the blind slugs one by one from the tray, all of us bent so jealously at our work, determined that not even chaos be outside of our own making.
Es una historia larga, he said.
Hay tiempo, they said.
Doomed enterprises divide lives forever into the then and the now.
McDonald, John D. A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965).
... in the first grey of a tomcat dawn.
It is a temporizing world, fading into uncertain shades of grey, so full of complexities all worth and value are questioned ...
Newsmen have a very short attention span. It is a prerequisite in the business. That is why the news accounts of almost anything make sense to all ages up to the age of twelve. If one wishes to enjoy newspapers, it is wise to halt all intellectual development at that age. The schools are doing their level best to achieve this goal. For the first time in history it is possible to earn doctorates in obscure professional techniques without upsetting the standard of a twelve year old basic intellect.
Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick.
Oh! Ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say - here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. (Speaking of those who had lost loved ones at sea.)
Father Mapple's wisdom:
In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel
freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
... Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation.
Back to Ishmael:
In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.
Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.
I then went on, beginning with the rise and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and common sense. ... Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.
Peleg:
Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers - it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish.Mencius. Book VI Kao Tzu, Part II. 15
Heaven, when it is about to place a great responsibility on a man, always first tests his resolution, wears out his sinews and bones with toil, exposes his body to starvation, subjects him to extreme poverty, frustrates his efforts so as to stimulate his mind, toughen his nature and make good his deficiencies. Men for the most part can mend their ways only after they make a mistake. Only when they are frustrated in mind and in their deliberations can they stand up anew. Only when their intentions become visible on their countenances and audible in their voices can they be understood by others. As a rule, a state without law-abiding families and trustworthy Gentlemen on the one hand, and, on the other, without the threat of external aggression, will perish. Only then do we realize that anxiety and distress lead to life and that ease and comfort end in death.
Only when a man will not do some things is he capable of doing great things. Part IV, B: 8
Mencken, H.L.
Milea, Jinx, & Pauline Lyttle. Why Jenny Can't Lead, 1986
One of the best lessons children learn through video games is standing still will get them killed quicker than anything else.
Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government.
There is the greatest difference between presuming an opinion to be true, because with every opportunity for contesting it, it has not been refuted, and assuming its truth for the purpose of not permitting its refutation. Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.
Miss Piggy
Never eat more than you can lift.
Montaigne.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
de Montesquieu, C.L..
The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
Mote, Frederck W. Intellectual Foundations of China
Confucianism was quite realistic about the material basis of ethics; hungry people cannot be expected to be good.
Moulan (Animated Disney movie)
Flowers that bloom in adversity are the rarest and most beautiful
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