Brendan’s Reviews > Discourses on Livy > Status Update

Machiavelli understood high pressure sales (and diplomatic) tactics:

“When one desires to obtain a thing from another individual, if the opportunity allows he ought not to give him space to deliberate, and ought to act so that he sees the necessity of a quick decision, which is when he who is asked sees that from refusing or delaying arises a sudden dangerous indignation.”

“Here it is to be considered with this true example how much more a humane act full of charity is sometimes able to do in the spirits of men than a ferocious and violent act, and that often those provinces that arms, warlike instruments, and every other human force have not been able to open have been opened by one example of humanity and of mercy.”

“When gain is seen in the things that are put before the people, even though there is loss concealed underneath, and when it appears spirited, even though there is the ruin of the republic concealed underneath, it will always be easy to persuade the multitude of it; and likewise it may always be difficult to persuade [the public]of policies if either cowardice or loss might appear, even though safety and gain might

“Men are wont to worry in evil and to become bored with good, and from both of these two passions the same effects arise. For whenever engaging in combat through necessity is taken from men, they engage in combat through ambition, which is so powerful in human breasts that it never abandons them at whatever rank they rise to. The cause is that nature has created men so that they are able to desire everything and

“For as good customs have need of laws to maintain themselves, so laws have need of good customs so as to be observed.”

“This makes new laws insufficient because the orders, which remain fixed, corrupt them.”

“For a prudent individual knows many goods that do not have in themselves evident reasons with which one can persuade others. This wise men who wish to take away this difficulty have recourse to God.”