Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli Quotes
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We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.
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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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And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.
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Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.
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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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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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He who builds on the people, builds on the mud...
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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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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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Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
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The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.
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Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.
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A son could bear with great complacency, the death of his father, while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.
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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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He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.
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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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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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....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.
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As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained the fear of the prince, which temporarily supply the want of religion.
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A blast in the human breast is nothing to boast of.
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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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The people resemble a wild beast, which, naturally fierce and accustomed to live in the woods, has been brought up, as it were, in a prison and in servitude, and having by accident got its liberty, not being accustomed to search for its food, and not knowing where to conceal itself, easily becomes the prey of the first who seeks to incarcerate it again.
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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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Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.