Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.
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One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain; and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away; but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
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One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their children, so long, as I said above, as danger is remote; but when you are in danger they turn against you.
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Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.
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And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.
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A son could bear with great complacency, the death of his father, while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.
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A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.
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For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.
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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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Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.
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Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.
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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud...
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The leader should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands.
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The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.
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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 nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.
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Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.
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Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.
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As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained the fear of the prince, which temporarily supply the want of religion.
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One man should not be afraid of improving his posessions, lest they be taken away from him, or another deterred by high taxes from starting a new business. Rather, the Prince should be ready to reward men who want to do these things and those who endeavour in any way to increase the prosperity of their city or their state.
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God creates men, but they choose each other.