Niccolo Machiavelli's Quotes

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.

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.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

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.

For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.

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.

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.

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.

Politics have no relation to morals.

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

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

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

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

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

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

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.

Before all else, be armed.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.

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

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

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

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

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.

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

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

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

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

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