Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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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 chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.
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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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Present wars impoverish the lords that win as much as those that lose.
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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 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 that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.
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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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...the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.
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Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
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Change has no constituency.
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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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When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.
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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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Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
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Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.
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One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their children, so long, as I said above, as danger is remote; but when you are in danger they turn against you.
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Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.
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Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.
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The ends justifies the means.
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Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
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...people are by nature fickle, and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them persuaded.
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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.