Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

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

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

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

Since love and fear can hardly coexist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

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

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

Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.

I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.

A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.

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

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.

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.

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

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.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

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

God creates men, but they choose each other.

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.

Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.

For as laws are necessary that good manners be preserved, so there is need of good manners that law may be maintained.

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

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.