Top 100 Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
#1. (A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#2. Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#3. Discontented inhabitants who willingly admit a foreign power either through excessive ambition or through fear, as was the case with the Etolians, who admitted the Romans into Greece. So it was with every province that the Romans entered: they were brought in by the inhabitants themselves.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#4. I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#5. Men judge more from appearances than reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
Everyone sees your exterior, but few can
discern what you have in your heart.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#6. There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#7. The wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#8. Half of these aren't even Machiavelli.
Some are Plato, Thucydides etc ... doesnt anyone check these?
Niccolo Machiavelli
#9. Among other causes of misfortune which your not being armed brings upon you, it makes you despised ...
Niccolo Machiavelli
#10. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#11. What remains to be done must be done by you; since in order not to deprive us of our free will and such share of glory as belongs to us, God will not do everything himself.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#12. The people, as Cicero says, may be ignorant, but they can recognize the truth and will readily yield when some trustworthy man explains it to them.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#13. He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#14. cannot be called talent to slay fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may gain empire, but not glory.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#15. Thus the popes, sometimes in zeal for religion, at others moved by their own ambition, were continually calling in new parties and exciting new disturbances.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#16. If princes are indeed superior to the people in enacting laws, in organizing civil governments, in setting up new statues and ordinances, then doubtless the people are so superior in maintaining what has been instituted that they increase the glory of those who instituted them.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#17. Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#19. Nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#20. In our own days we have seen no princes accomplish great results save those who have been accounted miserly.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#21. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#22. The armour of others is too wide, or too strait for us; it falls off us, or it weighs us down.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#23. A multitude is strong while it holds together, but so soon as each of those who compose it begins ro think of his own private danger, it becomes weak and contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#24. In peace one is despoiled by the mercenaries, in war by one's enemies.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#25. and those modes of defence are alone good, certain and lasting, which depend upon yourself and your own worth.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#27. There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#28. For whoever believes that great advancement and new benefits make men forget old injuries is mistaken.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#29. It is truly natural and ordinary thing to desire gain; and when those who can succeed attempt it, they will always be praised and not blamed. But if they cannot succeed, yet try anyway, they are guilty of error and are blameworthy.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#30. A prudent man will always try to follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been truly outstanding, so that, if he is not quite as skillful as they, at least some of their ability may rub off on him.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#31. Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#32. Men are so simple, and governed so absolutely by their present needs, that he who wishes to deceive will never fail in finding willing dupes.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#33. Men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others ...
Niccolo Machiavelli
#34. Men, walking almost always in paths beaten by others, and following by imitation their deeds, are yet unable to keep entirely to the ways of others or attain to the power of those they imitate.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#35. Men in general are as much affected by what a thing appears to be as by what it is, indeed they are frequently influenced more by appearances than by reality.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#36. He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#37. Men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules, wherein they are deceived because they afterward find by experience they have gone from bad to worse.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#38. Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, that so they may be more fully relished.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#40. And what physicians say about consumptive illnesses is applicable here: that at the beginning, such an illness is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#41. When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#42. In the armies, and among every ten men, there must be one of more life, of more heart, or at least of more authority, who with his spirit, with his words, and with his example keeps the others firm and disposed to fight.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#43. ...the scepticism of men, who do not truly believe in new things unless they have actually had personal experience of them.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#44. Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#45. Takes us the farther distance from the Old World to something new and revolutionary in human thought. That moral center, however, is hard to find with modern eyes. Locating it requires
Niccolo Machiavelli
#46. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage,
Niccolo Machiavelli
#47. Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#48. Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#49. Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#50. You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes ...
Niccolo Machiavelli
#51. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#52. I hope and hoping feeds my pain
I weep and weeping feeds my failing heart
I laugh but the laughter does not pass within
I burn but the burning makes no mark outside
Niccolo Machiavelli
#53. Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#54. Sometimes it has been of great moment while the fight is going on, to disseminate words that pronounce the enemies' captain to be dead, or to have been conquered by another part of the army. Many times this has given victory to him who used it.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#56. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#57. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#58. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#59. Physicians tell us of hectic fever, that in its beginning it is easy to cure, but hard to recognize; whereas, after a time, not having been detected and treated at the first, it becomes easy to recognize but impossible to cure. And so it is with State affairs.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#60. At Florence which included diplomatic missions to various European courts. Imprisoned
Niccolo Machiavelli
#62. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#63. We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#64. A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#65. He said that it always struck him with surprise that while men in buying an earthen or glass vase would sound it first to learn if it were good, yet in choosing a wife they were content with only looking at her.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#66. The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#67. War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#68. Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#69. In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#70. It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#71. Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#73. But when you disarm them, you at once offend them by showing that you distrust them, either for cowardice or for want of loyalty, and either of these opinions breeds hatred against you.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#74. One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#75. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#76. A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#77. Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#78. To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#79. He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#81. As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained the fear of the prince, which temporarily supply the want of religion.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#82. I believe that it is possible for one to praise, without concern, any man after he is dead since every reason and supervision for adulation is lacking.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#83. Nevertheless, that our freewill may not be altogether extinguished, I think it may be true that fortune is the ruler of half our actions, but that she allows the other half or a little less to be governed by us.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#84. The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#85. And the usual course of affairs is that, as soon as a powerful foreigner enters a country, all the subject states are drawn to him, moved by the hatred that they feel against the ruling power.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#86. There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#87. T happens in all human affairs that we never seek to escape one mischief without falling into another. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage, and in accepting a less evil as a good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#88. A Prince should esteem the great, but must not make himself odious to the people.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#89. 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.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#92. For Time, driving all things before it, may bring with it evil as well as good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#93. On the whole, the best fortress you can have, is in not being hated by your subjects. If they hate you no fortress will save you ...
Niccolo Machiavelli
#94. I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#96. Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#97. Being feared and not hated go well together, and the prince can always do this if he does not touch the property or the women of his citizens and subjects.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#98. Therefore a wise prince ought to adopt such a course that his citizens will always in every sort and kind of circumstance have need of the state and of him, and then he will always find them faithful.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#99. This again results naturally and necessarily from the circumstance that the Prince cannot avoid giving offence to his new subjects, either in respect of the troops he quarters on them, or of some other of the numberless vexations attendant on a new acquisition.
Niccolo Machiavelli
#100. He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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