Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.
Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it.
Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren't paying any attention to you. It's your attention to yourself that is so stultifying. But you have to disregard yourself as completely as possible. If you fail the first time then you'll just have to try harder the second time. After all, there's no real reason why you should fail. Just stop thinking about yourself.
When you know to laugh and when to look upon things as too absurd to take seriously, the other person is ashamed to carry through even if he was serious about it.
practically nothing we do ever stands by itself. If it is good, it will serve some good purpose in the future. If it is evil, it may haunt us and handicap our efforts in unimagined ways.
Government exists for one purpose: to make things better for all people.
You must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak or the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him.
A woman has, first of all, her duties in their own home, and there are many women particularly when they're young, who can do an active job in their community like being a mayor, but who cannot go to Washington or Albany or wherever the capital of the state is. There are others who can, can leave home, whose children are older and so forth. I think it all is a personal decision.
It has been a long fight to put the control of our economic system in the hands of the government.
Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.
Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.
the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.
You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.
We need our radicals.
What one has to do usually can be done.
One should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others.
For ever so our thoughtful hearts repeatOn fields of triumph dirges of defeat;And still we turn on gala-days to treadAmong the rustling memories of the dead.
Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.
it is harder to be philosophical when you are young.
Some friends leave footprints in your heart
For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.
There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.
The giving of love and understanding is an education in itself.
Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action.
The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says: it can't be done.
The peasant wants only to be left alone to prosper in peace.
Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding.
Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart
talking too much is a far greater social fault than talking too little.
War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
It is a foolish prince who entrusts the safety of his lands to hired men.
To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.
Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.
I think if the people of this country can be reached with the truth, their judgment will be in favor of the many, as against the privileged few
...it is a base thing to look to others for your defense instead of depending upon yourself. That defense alone is effectual, sure, and durable which depends upon yourself and your own valor.
Life has got to be lived - that's all there is to it.
Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.
A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.
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.
It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all.
I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on.
I'm sure that all the drivers and motorcycle police had once been racing drivers and were eager to get back to that profession.
No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life with its eyes shut is a kind of wild insanity.
If only the best birds sang, the forest would be silent.
The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.
Subjection to fear is weakness, bondage, feverish unrest. To be afraid is to have no soul that we can call our own; it is to be at the beck and call of alien powers, to be chained and driven and tormented; it is to lose the life itself in the anxious care to keep it.
It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
Favorite People, Favorite Places,Favorite Memories of the past ...These are the joys of a lifetimeThose are the things that last
Do one thing every day that scares you.
It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
There never has been security. No man has ever known what he would meet around the next corner; if life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.
