"Princes should delegate to others the enactment..." - Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli
Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.
More by Niccolo Machiavelli
“it is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.”
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things..... Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.”
“In the armies and among every ten men there is one of more life, of more heart, or at least of more authority, who with his courage, with words and by example keeps the others firm and disposed to fight.”
More on Leadership
“I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides - the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be.”
“The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.”
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”