Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.
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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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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 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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The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
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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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A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.
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A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.
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A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.
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Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.
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Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.
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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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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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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 so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.
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One must be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves...
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Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
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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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He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.
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Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
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A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.
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It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline.
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One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
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He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.