Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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.
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He who is the cause of another's advancement is thereby the cause of his own ruin.
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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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Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.
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Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.
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If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.
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Hence it comes that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
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Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.
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Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
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....those who become princes through their skill acquire the pricipality with difficulty, buy they hold onto it with ease.
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It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
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One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain; and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away; but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.
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...as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure.
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So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.
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There are three kinds of brains: One understands of itself, another can be taught to understand, and the third can neither understand to itself or be taught to understand.
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War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
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The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom.
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The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
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One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.
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Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
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It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to arrange, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm ... partly because men are generally incredulous, never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
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A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.
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Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not to suffer.