Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
He is arguing against Machiavelli's lamentation over their failure to achieve national unity. This was the point urged by Machiavelli, in the Principe, the Discorsi, and the Art of War.
Have these historians of hearts and souls duties at all inferior to the historians of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any less important than the upper side merely because it is deeper and more sombre? Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted with the cavern?
Had he confided to Barbara the important reasons which compelled him to impose restrictions for a short time upon the demands of his heart, she, who esteemed his grandeur little less than his love, would have cheerfully submitted to what was necessary and right; but truthfulness and frankness were far more characteristic of her nature than of that of the politician who was accustomed to the tricks and evasions of the time of Machiavelli.
Acting upon this telegram, I returned to the abode of Mr. Goodge, told him his terms were to be complied with, showed him the telegram, at his request, and asked for the letters. I ought to have known my reverend friend better than to imagine he would part with those ancient documents except for money upon the counter. He smiled a smile which might have illuminated the visage of Machiavelli.
Sir T. Shepstone, however, has enemies like other people, and is commonly reported among them to be a disciple of Machiavelli, and to have his mind steeped in all the darker wiles of Kafir policy. The Annexation of the Transvaal is by them attributed to a successful and vigorous use of those arts that distinguished the diplomacy of two centuries ago.
The phrases in italics show how thoroughly Machiavelli regarded the commonwealth as plastic. Not one of these men doubted that his nostrum would effect the cure of the republic undermined by slow consumption. St. Fior. lib. vi. cap. 4; vol. i. p. 294.
Machiavelli exceeded him in power of ratiocination from a given proposition, but does not seem to have been able to determine whether a given proposition was right or wrong. In force of mind Jefferson has often been surpassed: Hamilton was his superior. As an executive officer, where action was required, he could not have been distinguished.
Machiavelli sets forth in some of his valuable essays the character and the political condition of the Germans and French in such a way that the born northerner, familiar with the history of his own country, is grateful to the Florentine thinker for his flashes of insight.
The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its constant reference to a higher world beyond the grave, could no longer control these men. Machiavelli ventured still further, and maintained that it could not be serviceable to the State and to the maintenance of public freedom.
His book is too evidently modelled upon Montesquieu, whom he mentions with reverence, to make us doubt its derivation. There is the same reliance upon Livy and Machiavelli, the same attempt at striking generalization; though the argument upon which Brown's conclusions are based is seldom given, perhaps because his geometric clarity of statement impressed him as self-demonstrative.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking