Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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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...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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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.
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One never finds anything perfectly pure and ... exempt from danger.
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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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For whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great Error, and may expect to be ruin 'd himself.
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The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
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Among other causes of misfortune which your not being armed brings upon you, it makes you despised.
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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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Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.
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Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.
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Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.
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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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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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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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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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Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.
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He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.
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The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
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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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Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
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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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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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A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it according to the necessity of the case.