1 These, briefly, are two, public or secret.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER XXVIII. 2 But credit acquired by secret practices, which is the other method spoken of, is most perilous and prejudicial.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER XXVIII. 3 Those punished will have no cause to complain, since it was in their power to have impeached openly where they have secretly calumniated.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 1: CHAPTER VIII. 4 In secret nocturnal enterprises of this sort, no man was ever more successful than Aratus of Sicyon, although in any encounter by day there never was a more arrant coward.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 2: CHAPTER XXXII. 5 And to begin with those which are incurred beforehand, and which are graver than all the rest, I say that he must be both very prudent and very fortunate who, when contriving a conspiracy, does not suffer his secret to be discovered.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER VI. 6 Against these causes of the discovery of conspiracies it is impossible so to guard as that either through treachery, want of caution, or levity, the secret shall not be found out, whenever more than three or four persons are privy to it.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER VI. 7 Because towns are sometimes, though seldom, taken by craft, through secret practices had with their inhabitants, I think it not out of place to discuss the matter in the following Chapter, wherein I shall likewise show in how many ways the Romans were wont to make such acquisitions.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 2: CHAPTER XXXI. 8 Tardy resolves are due to want of spirit or want of strength, or to the perversity of those who have to determine, who being moved by a secret desire to overthrow the government, or to carry out some selfish purpose of their own, suffer no decision to be come to, but only thwart and hinder.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 2: CHAPTER XV. 9 Afterwards, on pretence of arranging for the execution of this surrender, he came repeatedly to confer with those whom the Florentine commissaries had deputed to treat with him, coming not secretly but openly, and accompanied by other citizens of Pisa, whom he caused to stand aside while he conversed with the Florentines.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER XLVIII. 10 Moreover, since favours to the Medicean party could not have been rendered secretly and once for all, they would have been most dangerous for Piero, who, had he shown himself friendly to the Medici, must have become suspected and hated by the people; in which case his enemies would have had still better opportunities than before for his destruction.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 1: CHAPTER LII. 11 Of such secret practices may be instanced, acts of kindness done to this or the other citizen in lending him money, in assisting him to marry his daughters, in defending him against the magistrates, and in conferring such other private favours as gain men devoted adherents, and encourage them after they have obtained such support, to corrupt the institutions of the State and to violate its laws.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo MachiavelliContextHighlight In BOOK 3: CHAPTER XXVIII.