Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
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...the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.
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There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
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Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.
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For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity...servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes...and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.
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There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
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Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.
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There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
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There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things..... Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.
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....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.
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Among other causes of misfortune which your not being armed brings upon you, it makes you despised.
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The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.
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There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.
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We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.
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The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.
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God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried.
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...people are by nature fickle, and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them persuaded.
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A blast in the human breast is nothing to boast of.
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Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
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A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it according to the necessity of the case.
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It is much better to tempt fortune where it can favor you than to see your certain ruin by not tempting it.
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You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.