Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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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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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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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There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.
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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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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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So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.
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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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Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
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Change has no constituency.
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God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
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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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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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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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He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.
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How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
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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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One should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others.
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Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
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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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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.