Talk:Niccolò Machiavelli

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I suggest that the "Attributed" quotes be removed until their authenticity can be verified, considering the many pseudobeliefs that are currently popular regarding Machiavelli and his work. It seems fashionable to think soley that Machiavelli was an extreme authoritarian (especially in the current political climate in America), which is debatable by the students of Italian history and political science, and I think these "Attributed" quotes do not well-reflect his varied work to an ordinary reader looking for knowledge on the subject. Naturally, I defer motion to my fellow Wikians. --AFasih

I agree. --GenkiNeko

I disagree. Ideally most of the "Attributed" quotes in articles will eventually become "Sourced" to genuine documentation. If there are quotes that are commonly attributed to someone erroneously, these should be pointed out as "Misattributions" within Wikiquote articles, or on the talk pages, as has been done elsewhere, such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, & Talk:John F. Kennedy. If anyone feels the selections that have been made are imbalanced, they should add some which provide greater balance, not remove genuine or attributed quotes they might simply feel to be "unrepresentative". I am now restoring some deletions that recently occurred ~ Achilles 10:08, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Original Source

Could one of the editors, who is literate in Italian, please locate in the original (untranslated) text the original statements, and add them on? See Francis Bacon's quotes in Latin for reference.

many thanks

[edit] One of the unsourced quotes

One of the quotes that was listed as 'unsourced' was "Men sooner forget being robbed of their fathers than of their patrimony."

I found a quote very similar to this (probably an alternate translation) in Chapter 17 of The Prince: "men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

I got this quote from a version of the book published in 1935 by Oxford University Press, Inc. I think that seems a bit dated, if someone else has a more modern edition / translation of The Prince, perhaps they could check it to see if they can find that quote in the chapter, "Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved or Feared."