Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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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....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.
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The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
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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.
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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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Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.
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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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How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
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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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He who has annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations: the one, that the family of their former lord is extinguished; the other, that neither their laws nor their taxes are altered, so that in a very short time they will become entirely one body with the old principality.
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Few men are brave by nature, but good discipline and experience make many so.
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A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.
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Men nearly always follow the tracks made by others and proceed in their affairs by imitation, even though they cannot entirely keep to the tracks of others or emulate the prowess of their models. So a prudent man should always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding.
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Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
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So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.
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There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
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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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It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.
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Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
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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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And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.
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Although deceit is detestable in all other things, yet in the conduct of war it is laudable and honorable; and a commander who vanquishes an enemy by stratagem is equally praised with one who gains victory by force.
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It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.