The Prince

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Machiavelli, Nicolo

"The Prince"

And because you cannot remain unarmed, it follows that you turn to mercenaries, which are of the character already shown; even if they should be good they would not be sufficient to defend you against powerful enemies and distrusted subjects. Therefore, as I have said, a new prince in a new principality has always distributed arms. Histories are full of examples. But when a prince acquires a new state, which he adds as a province to his old one, then it is necessary to disarm the men of that state, except those who have been his adherents in acquiring it; and these again, with time and opportunity, should be rendered soft and effeminate; and matters should be managed in such a way that all the armed men in the state shall be your own soldiers who in your old state were living near you.

3. Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia by factions and Pisa by fortresses; and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.

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Our Friend the Charlatan (page 476) (From Charlemagne to Frederick Barbarossa) (page 372) Count Bunker: being a bald yet veracious chronicle containing some further particulars of two gentlemen whose previous careers were touched upon in a tome entitled the Lunatic at Large (page )

Village books

Machiavelli, Nicolo

"The Prince"