Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

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Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

Niccolò Machiavelli
And therefore a prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought never, therefore, to have out of his thoughts this subject of war, and in peace he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war; this he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study.

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
A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

Niccolò Machiavelli
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.

Niccolò Machiavelli
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.

Niccolò Machiavelli
How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

Niccolò Machiavelli
And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.

Niccolò Machiavelli
For as when much superfluous matter has gathered in simple bodies, nature makes repeated efforts to remove and purge it away, thereby promoting the health of these bodies, so likewise as regards that composite body the human race, when every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove elsewhere, every region being equally crowded and over-peopled, and when human craft and wickedness have reached their highest pitch, it must needs come about that the world will purge herself in one or another of these three ways, to the end that men, becoming few and contrite, may amend their lives and live with more convenience.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

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
There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.

Niccolò Machiavelli
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.

Niccolò Machiavelli
It is much safer to be feared than loved because... love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

Niccolò Machiavelli
I assert once again as a truth to which history as a whole bears witness that men may second their fortune, but cannot oppose it; that they may weave its warp, but cannot break it. Yet they should never give up, because there is always hope, though they know not the end and more towards it along roads which cross one another and as yet are unexplored; and since there is hope, they should not despair, no matter what fortune brings or in what travail they find themselves.

Niccolò Machiavelli
States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.

Niccolò Machiavelli
But in Republics there is a stronger vitality, a fiercer hatred, a keener thirst for revenge. The memory of their former freedom will not let them rest; so that the safest course is either to destroy them, or to go and live in them.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries—for heavy ones they cannot.

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
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.

Niccolò Machiavelli
Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: What course will save the life and liberty of the country?

Niccolò Machiavelli
Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself; for that power is produced by him either through craft or force; and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power.

Niccolò Machiavelli
We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.

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

Niccolò Machiavelli
Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.

Niccolò Machiavelli
In our own days we have seen no princes accomplish great results save those who have been accounted miserly.

Niccolò Machiavelli
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.

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
A wise ruler should rely on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others.

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

Niccolò Machiavelli