Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed.
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In our own days we have seen no princes accomplish great results save those who have been accounted miserly.
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A prince is also respected when he is a true friend and a true enemy; that is, when he declares himself on the side of one prince against another without any reservation.
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A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised. . . . Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.
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In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.
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All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.
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It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.
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Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: What course will save the life and liberty of the country?
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My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.
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Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women.
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Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.
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All the armed prophets conquered; all the unarmed ones perished.
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The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
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He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.
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Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.
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Besides what has been said, people are fickle by nature; and it is a simple to convince them of something but difficult to hold them in that conviction; and, therefore, affairs should be managed in such a way that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.
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War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.
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Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.
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For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.
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....it cannot be called ingenuity to kill one's fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; by these means one can aquire power but not glory.
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It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
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The unarmed man is not just defenseless - he is also contemptible.
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The innovator has for enemies all who have done well under the old, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
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Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.