Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

The Swiss are well armed and very free.

يمحو النصر آثار أكثر الأعمال فشلا، فيما تجهض الهزيمة أكثر الخطط تنظيما

One Must Be A Fox In Order To Recognize Traps, And A Lion To Frighten Off Wolves

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.

One must never forget to look at the aim of a matter.

For, besides what has been said, it should be borne in mind that the temper of the multitude is fickle, and that while it is easy to persuade them of a thing, it is hard to fix them in that persuasion

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

But since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable for me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imagined one. Many writers have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen nor known to exist in reality. For there is such a distance between how one lives and how one ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done achieves his downfall rather than his preservation.

Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.

Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

Everything that occurs in the world, in every epoch, has something that corresponds to it in ancient times.

I say, then, that hereditary States, accustomed to the family of their Prince, are maintained with far less difficulty than new States, since all that is required is that the Prince shall not depart from the usages of his ancestors, trusting for the rest to deal with events as they arise.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

At nightfall I return home and enter my study. There on the threshold I remove my dirty, mud-spattered clothes, slip on my regal and courtly robes, and thus fittingly attired, I enter the ancient courts of bygone men where, having received a friendly welcome, I feed on the food that is mine alone and that I was born for. I am not ashamed to speak with them and inquire into the reasons for their actions; and they answer me in kindly fashion. And so for four hours I feel no annoyance; I forget all troubles; poverty hold no fears, and death loses its terrors. I become entirely one of them.

It is not titles that make men illustrious, but men who make titles illustrious.