Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

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

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

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

"Politics have no relation to morals."

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

"It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver."

"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."

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

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

"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."

"Never was anything great achieved without danger."

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

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

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

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

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

"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."

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

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

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

"Before all else, be armed."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

"To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people."

"Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear."

"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."

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