Quotes from Niccolo Machiavelli

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

And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.

All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.

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

Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.

For titles do not reflect honor on men, but rather men on their titles.

Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.

Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.

It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather.

Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.

Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.

Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.

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

There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.

...people are by nature fickle, and it is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to keep them persuaded.

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

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.

Among other causes of misfortune which your not being armed brings upon you, it makes you despised.

....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.

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.

....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.

....those who become princes through their skill acquire the pricipality with difficulty, buy they hold onto it with ease.

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