Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.
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The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox.
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It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.
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The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.
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The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.
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No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
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For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.
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To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.
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When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.
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All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.
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Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.
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For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
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No one should therefore fear that he cannot accomplish what others have accomplished, for, men are born, live, and die in quite the same way they always have.
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A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.
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We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.
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There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.
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It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they, are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
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It is the duty of a man of honor to teach others the good which he has not been able to do himself because of the malignity of the times, that this good finally can be done by another more loved in heaven.
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Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.
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The prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches.
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Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.
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A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
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Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself; for that power is produced by him either through craft or force; and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power.
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Never was anything great achieved without danger.