Quotes from Niccolo Machiavelli

Let no one contradict my opinion by citing that trite proverb, claiming he who builds upon the people builds upon mud; for that is true when a private citizen makes them his foundation, and allows himself to believe that the common people will free him if he is oppressed by enemies or by the public officials.

And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art.

But a man is not often found sufficiently circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to do, and also because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is well to leave it; and, therefore, the cautious man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his conduct with the times fortune would not have changed.

takes us the farther distance from the Old World to something new and revolutionary in human thought. That moral center, however, is hard to find with modern eyes. Locating it requires

Therefore, a wise prince must think of a method by which his citizens will need the state and himself at all times and in every circumstance. Then they will always be loyal to him.

Anyone who believes that new benefits make men of high station forget old injuries deceives himself.

He who is not your friend will demand your neutrality.

He ought to entertain the people with festivals and spectacles at convenient seasons of the year … always maintaining the majesty of his rank, for this he must never consent to abate in anything.

The temper of the multitude is fickle

and those modes of defence are alone good, certain and lasting, which depend upon yourself and your own worth.

E fu di tanta virtù, etiam in privata fortuna, che chi ne scrive, dice: quod nihil illi deerat ad regnandum praeter regnum.

he will see a golden age where each person can hold and defend the opinions that he wishes.

Men for the most part follow in the footsteps and imitate the actions of others...

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

Men always praise antiquity and fault the present, although not always reasonably, and they are partisans of things past such that not only do they celebrate those ages that they know from what historians have preserved of them, but also those that as old men they recall having seen in their youth. And if this opinion of theirs is false, as it is most of the time, I am persuaded that there are various causes that lead them into this deception.

a veces, lo que parece virtud es causa de ruina, y lo que parece vicio solo acaba por traer el bienestar y la seguridad.

the authority that is seized by violence, not that given by votes, harms republics.

because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.

it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.

Above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.

Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

In The Prince Machiavelli mounts two distinct lines of intellectual and political attack, one against the baseness of Medicean statecraft, the other against the too-strict Ciceronian conception of politics. Against both traditions, he elaborates a new 'art of the state'. He openly declares himself to be an expert in this art.

In this way you have enemies in all those whom you have injured in seizing that principality, and you are not able to keep those friends who put you there because of your not being able to satisfy them in the way they expected, and you cannot take strong measures against them, feeling bound to them.

Nicia: God send him the plague! Timoteo: Why? Nicia: So he'll get it!