Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

161 Sourced Quotes

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

Niccolò Machiavelli
A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

Niccolò Machiavelli
The wish to acquire is in truth very natural and common, and men always do so when they can.but when they cannot do so, yet wish to do so by any means, then there is folly and blame.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves

Niccolò Machiavelli
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.

Niccolò Machiavelli
I am firmly convinced, therefore, that to set up a republic which is to last a long time, the way to set about it is to constitute it as Sparta and Venice were constituted; to place it in a strong position, and so to fortify it that no one will dream of taking it by a sudden assault; and, on the other hand, not to make it so large as to appear formidable to its neighbors. It should in this way be able to enjoy its form of government for a long time. For war is made on a commonwealth for two reasons: to subjugate it, and for fear of being subjugated by it.

Niccolò Machiavelli
For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.

Niccolò Machiavelli
The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.

Niccolò Machiavelli
It is enough to ask somebody for his weapons without saying 'I want to kill you with them', because when you have his weapons in hand, you can satisfy your desire.

Niccolò Machiavelli
The cause of the bad and of the good fortune of men is the way in which their method of working fits the times.

Niccolò Machiavelli
The demands of a free populace, too, are very seldom harmful to liberty, for they are due either to the populace being oppressed or to the suspicious that it is going to be oppressed... and, should these impressions be false, a remedy is provided in the public platform on which some man of standing can get up, appeal to the crowd, and show that it is mistaken. And though, as Tully remarks, the populace may be ignorant, it is capable of grasping the truth and readily yields when a man, worthy of confidence, lays the truth before it.

Niccolò Machiavelli
A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.

Niccolò Machiavelli
So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honour, they are satisfied.

Niccolò Machiavelli
It may be observed, that provinces amid the vicissitudes to which they are subject, pass from order into confusion, and afterward recur to a state of order again; for the nature of mundane affairs not allowing them to continue in an even course, when they have arrived at their greatest perfection, they soon begin to decline. In the same manner, having been reduced by disorder, and sunk to their utmost state of depression, unable to descend lower, they, of necessity, reascend; and thus from good they gradually decline to evil, and from evil again return to good. The reason is, that valor produces peace; peace, repose; repose, disorder; disorder, ruin; so from disorder order springs; from order virtue, and from this, glory and good fortune.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Although deceit is detestable in all other things, yet in the conduct of war it is laudable and honorable; and a commander who vanquishes an enemy by stratagem is equally praised with one who gains victory by force.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions...Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress, and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.

Niccolò Machiavelli
All who contribute to the overthrow of religion, or to the ruin of kingdoms and commonwealths, all who are foes to letters and to the arts which confer honour and benefit on the human race (among whom I reckon the impious, the cruel, the ignorant, the indolent, the base and the worthless), are held in infamy and detestation.

Niccolò Machiavelli
They fight for the sake of ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that, no matter the rank to which a man may rise, he never abandons it.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.

Niccolò Machiavelli
I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking.

Niccolò Machiavelli
He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must.

Niccolò Machiavelli
A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.

Niccolò Machiavelli
The wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.

Niccolò Machiavelli
He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.

Niccolò Machiavelli