Quotes By Niccolo Machiavelli

Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.

Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

Before all else, be armed.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

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

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

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

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

Severities should be dealt out all at once, so that their suddenness may give less offense; benefits ought to be handed ought drop by drop, so that they may be relished the more.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.