"States that rise quickly, just as all..." - Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

“I don't doubt that every prince would like to be both; but since it is hard to accomodate these qualities, 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....[love] is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break anything they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.”

“In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.”

“One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.”

“Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist.”

“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.”

“Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid bottom everywhere.”

“You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.”

“Like the lotus which thrives in mud, the potential for realization grows in the rich soil of everyday life”

“What fire does not destroy, it hardens”