“The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli , book Discourses on Livy

Book 1, Ch. 16
Discourses on Livy (1517)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as …" by Niccolo Machiavelli?

Niccolo Machiavelli photo

Niccolo Machiavelli 130

Italian politician, Writer and Author 1469–1527

Related quotes

“The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 386
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: The continuation of authority in the same person has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer Power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.

“When will we realize that the fact that we can become accustomed to anything, however disgusting at first, makes it necessary to examine carefully everything we have become accustomed to.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

1910s, A Treatise on Parents and Children (1910)

“We naturally like what we have been accustomed to, and are attracted towards it. […] The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: The Guide for the Perplexed

“We have become accustomed to living our life with joy amidst pain and challenges”

Dana Reeve (1961–2006) Actress, singer, activist

Access Hollywood Interview (May 2005)

“Fortunately the Italian people has not yet accustomed itself to eat many times a day, and possessing a modest level of living, it feels deficiency and suffering less.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Carol F. Helstosky, Garlic and Oil: Food and Politics in Italy (2006)
Undated

“Tom has a theory that homosexuals and single women in their thirties have natural bonding: both being accustomed to disappointing their parents and being treated as freaks by society.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

“People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery.”

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) French poet

Source: The Cubist Painters

“If all men were upon an equality in point of means, England would become what the wilds of America are, inhabited by wild men; nobody would work except just to provide food and raiment for the day; and our country would become the most beggarly upon the earth, instead of being what it formerly was (and I hope and trust will be again) the pride of its people and the envy of the world.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘To the Labourers of England’, Political Register (2 April 1831), p. 8
1830s

“The Sun has come to represent enlightenment and salvation across many cultures. I think that if we remove such comforting concepts we are required to do more soul searching but eventually our eyes become accustomed to the dark and our lives become richer.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

“To feed on Death is to become food for Death. To live by others' pain is to become a prey for pain. So has decreed the Omniwill. Know that and choose your course, Micayon.”

Mikha'il Na'ima book The Book of Mirdad

The Book of Mirdad (1948)

Related topics