Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

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. Wherefore, matters should be so ordered that when men no longer believe of their own accord, they may be compelled to believe by force.

It is better to be feared than to be loved, if you can not be both

There are many who think a wise prince ought, when he has the chance, to foment astutely some enmity, so that by suppressing it he will augment his greatness.

Moreover, a Republic trusting to her own forces, is with greater difficulty than one which relies on foreign arms brought to yield obedience to a single citizen. Rome and Sparta remained for ages armed and free. The Swiss are at once the best armed and the freest people in the world.

Verträge bricht man um des Nutzens willen.

For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives.

Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.

For Time, driving all things before it, may bring with it evil as well as good.

Virtue gives birth to tranquillity, tranquillity to leisure, leisure to disorder, disorder to ruin... and similarly from ruin, order is born, from order virtue, from virtue, glory and good fortune.

But while it was their opportunities that made these men fortunate, it was their own merit that enabled them to recognize these opportunities and turn them to account, to the glory and prosperity of their country.

There is a general note to be noted here: People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone else, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.

"Prudent men are wont to say — and this not rashly or without good ground — that he who would foresee what has to be should reflect on what has been, for everything that happens in the world at any time has genuine resemblance to what happened in ancient times." — Machiavelli

An unavoidable war is called justice. When brutality is the only option left it is holy

Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation

Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be — and are ruined.