Machiavelli Quotes

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

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

Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action.

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

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

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.

Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.

For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.

One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.

He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.

Ability and perseverance are the weapons of weakness.

The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox.

Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony

When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.

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

Few men are brave by nature, but good discipline and experience make many so.

There is nothing so difficult or so dangerous as to undertake to change the order of things.

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

Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.

Impetuosity and audacity often achieve what ordinary means fail to achieve.

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm.

Appear as you may wish to be

God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.

Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.

Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.

Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.

A battle that you win cancels any other bad action of yours. In the same way, by losing one, all the good things worked by you before become vain.

When you disarm your subjects, however, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

Before all else, be armed.

Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.

He who is the cause of another's advancement is thereby the cause of his own ruin.

A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.

One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.

No one should therefore fear that he cannot accomplish what others have accomplished, for, men are born, live, and die in quite the same way they always have.

Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards.

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.

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself.

Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.

A wise ruler should rely on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others.

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.

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