Quotes from Machiavelli Niccolò

Não se pode definir como virtude a matança dos próprios concidadãos, a traição aos amigos e a demonstração de falta de lealdade, de piedade, de consciência e de ideal moral: Essas práticas podem conquistar o poder ao príncipe, nunca a glória.

A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.

Mankind do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it.

Quod Principi plaevit habet legis vigorem

Without an opportunity, their abilities would have been wasted, and without their abilities, the opportunity would have arisen in vain.

For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites and dissemblers, avoiders of dangers, greedy for gain; and while you benefit them, they are entirely yours, offering you their blood, their goods, their life, their children,...when need is far away, but when you actually become needy, they turn away. (translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn)

These opportunities, then, gave these men the chance they needed, and their great abilities made them recognize it.

Those who believe that where great personages are concerned new favors cause old injuries to be forgotten deceive themselves.

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.

no one should marvel at the ease with which Alexander [the Great] kept possession of Asia, or at the difficulties which others, like Pyrrhus and many more, had in preserving their conquests. The difference does not arise from the greater or lesser ability of the conqueror, but from dissimilarities in the conquered lands.

There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.

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

he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.

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.