Machiavelli's The Prince and Plutarch's Lives

While other Americans dreamed of a brand-new society that would expunge all traces of effete European civilization, Hamilton humbly studied those societies for clues to the formation of a new...

In the general course of things, the popular views and even prejudices will direct the action of the rulers.

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true

It's like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.

Discipline was necessary, but unquestioning obedience was a limiting thing, not a growing one.

power in and of itself is neither worthy of respect nor fear; it simply is. It is how power is employed, and towards what ends, that ennobles or denigrates the wielder of power.

The queen hadn't even bothered to say good-bye. She'd just dashed for the injured Fae warrior, his name like a prayer on her lips. Rowan.

Arobynn told me that second place was just a nice title for the first loser

You throw a person in the river and then make a spectacle of jumping in to save them.

This is precisely why I am a teacher! Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay, that there might...

One ought perhaps not to count Moses, as he was a mere executor of the will of God; he must nevertheless be admired, if only for the grace that made him worthy of speaking to God.

That Steuben, who needed a translator, what with his English vocabulary consisting almost entirely of swear words, ended up being the perfect hire to upgrade the Continental Army should rattle every...

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Do I not say truly, Gandalf,' said Aragorn at last, 'that you could go whithersoever you wished quicker than I? And this I also say: you are our captain and our banner. The Dark Lord has Nine. But we...

There are times to let things happen, and times to make things happen. Now is that time. You will either make things happen, watch what happens, or wonder what happened.

Life had shown him that logic and step-by-step planning hardly controlled events.

All the cartoonists at heart liked him, and there was seldom or never anything bitter or really unfriendly in their portrayals of him; they were uniformly good-natured. Caricatures even transformed...

South Holding, was the acknowledged leader of the Twenty-ninth Cave, but Summer Camp and

And he learned that when Johnson gave an assignment, no excuses were accepted. He used to say, 'I want only can-do people.' That was one of his favorite expressions. 'I only want can-do people around....

If you do everything, you'll win

Certainly, nobody imagined that Mr. Lincoln would order an armed invasion over the affair. When he did exactly that, the entire South exploded with defiance and patriotism, cheering the new...

Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.

But the stories that grow up around a king are strong vines with a fierce grip. They pull life from whatever surfaces they cling to, while the roots, maybe, wither and rot until you cannot find the...

When you play a game of thrones you win or you die.

I once heard a man speak, who had understanding, and the promise of vision. He was called the Master of Culter.

At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be,...

Confronted by menace or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, and drefine it.

The process of gaining power employs means which degrade or brutalize the seeker, who awakes to find that power has been possessed at the cost of virtue or moral purpose lost.

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.