Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
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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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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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Laa shay'a waqi'un moutlaq bale kouloun moumkine...We work in the Dark, to serve the Light.
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Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.
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A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit the mark they wish to reach.
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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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Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.
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For as laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so there is need of good manner that laws may be maintained. [It., Perche, cosi come i buoni costumi, per mantenersi, hanno bisogno delli leggi; cosi le leggi per ossevarsi, hanno bisogno de' buoni costumi.]
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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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When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor.
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Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong.
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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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For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.
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A prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices.
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Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.
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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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A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
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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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In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.
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...the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
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You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity...servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes...and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.
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Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.
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The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.