Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

“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.”

“Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.”

“Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty; for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor; nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.”

“Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.”

“The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.”

“Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.”

“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.”

“Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.”

“For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.”

“No proceeding is better than that which you have concealed from the enemy until the time you have executed it. To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else. Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many. Discipline in war counts more than fury.”

“There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.”

“Men are of three different capacities: one understands intuitively; another understands so far as it is explained; and a third understands neither of himself nor by explanation. The first is excellent, the second, commendable, and the third, altogether useless.”

“It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.”

“Appear as you may wish to be”

“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.”

“It is often found that modesty and humility not only do no good, but are positively hurtful, when they are shown to the arrogant who have taken up a prejudice against you, either from envy or from any other cause.”

“Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.”

“Half of these aren't even Machiavelli. Some are Plato, Thucydides etc....doesnt anyone check these?”

“You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second.”

“The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.”

“He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.”

“Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.”

“....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.”

“It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.”

“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. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.”