Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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When you disarm your subjects, however, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.
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For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm.
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Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.
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Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.
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I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness.
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One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.
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Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.
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Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
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I am firmly convinced, therefore, that to set up a republic which is to last a long time, the way to set about it is to constitute it as Sparta and Venice were constituted; to place it in a strong position, and so to fortify it that no one will dream of taking it by a sudden assault; and, on the other hand, not to make it so large as to appear formidable to its neighbors. It should in this way be able to enjoy its form of government for a long time. For war is made on a commonwealth for two reasons: to subjugate it, and for fear of being subjugated by it.
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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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States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them...
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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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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.
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One never finds anything perfectly pure and ... exempt from danger.
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It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
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A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.
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Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.
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It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
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(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.
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...it is a base thing to look to others for your defense instead of depending upon yourself. That defense alone is effectual, sure, and durable which depends upon yourself and your own valor.
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Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
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He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.
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I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
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Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.