Quotes from Niccolo Machiavelli

Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.

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 without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.

For this is the tragedy of man circumstances change, but he does not.

Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.

Men ought either to be well treated, or crushed.

Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.

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

Laa shay'a waqi'un moutlaq bale kouloun moumkine...We work in the Dark, to serve the Light.

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

In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.

Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.

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.

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.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

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.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.

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

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.

To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.

A son could bear complacently the death of his father while the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair