Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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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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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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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Though fraud in all other actions be odious, yet in matters of war it is laudable and glorious, and he who overcomes his enemies by stratagem is as much to be praised as he who overcomes them by force.
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Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
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One should never risk one's whole fortune unless supported by one's entire forces.
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I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
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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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He who becomes a Prince through the favour of the people should always keep on good terms with them; which it is easy for him to do, since all they ask is not to be oppressed...
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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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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
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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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The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom.
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God creates men, but they choose each other.
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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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Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves...
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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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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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He who is the cause of another's advancement is thereby the cause of his own ruin.
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They have not any difficulties on the way up because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit.
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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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Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.
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The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.
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The leader should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands.