Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

A man who wishes to profess at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.

From this one can derive a general rule which rarely, if ever, fails: that anyone who is the cause of another becoming powerful comes to ruin himself; because that power has been brought about by him either through cunning or by force; and both of these two qualities are suspect to the one who has become powerful.

One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who simply act like lions are stupid.

La quale opera io non ho ornata né ripiena di clausule ample, o di parole ampullose e magnifiche, o di qualunque altro lenocinio o ornamento estrinseco con li quali molti sogliono le loro cose descrivere e ornare; perché io ho voluto, o che veruna cosa la onori, o che solamente la varietà della materia e la gravità del subietto la facci grata.

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.

Wherefore, as has already been said, a Prince who is ignorant of military affairs, besides other disadvantages, can neither be respected by his soldiers, nor can he trust them.

It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another.

you ought never to suffer your designs to be crossed in order to avoid war, since war is not so to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage.

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.

He who is the cause of another’s greatness is himself undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

Men in general judge more with the eye than with the hand, because everyone can see, but few can feel. Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few feel what you are.

– Constantine translation

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.