A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Because there is nothing proportionate between the armed and the unarmed; and it is not reasonable that he who is armed should yield obedience willingly to him who is unarmed, or that the unarmed man should be secure among armed servants. Because, there being in the one disdain and in the other suspicion, it is not possible for them to work well together.
~ Niccolò Machiavelli
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Edgar Allan Poe is popularly known for writing early-American horror stories. But for me, he is a social scientist who used fiction instead of theory and statistics to make his arguments about human behavior.
~ Arthur C. Brooks
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