Quotes from Niccolo Machiavelli

There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy.

it is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.

In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.

He who builds on the people, builds on the mud

Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.

Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.

A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.

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.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Therefore the best fortress is to be found in the love of the people, for although you may have fortresses they will not save you if you are hated by the people.

The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.

Men intrinsically do not trust new things that they have not experienced themselves.

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

It's better to be impulsive than cautious; fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and thrust. You'll see she's more likely to yield that way than to men who go about her coldly. And being a woman she likes her men young, because they're not so cagey, they're wilder and more daring when they master her.

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

For it must be noted, that men must either be caressed or else annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

A prudent man will always try to follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been truly outstanding, so that, if he is not quite as skillful as they, at least some of their ability may rub off on him.

For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying

the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.

I desire to go to Hell and not to Heaven. In the former I shall enjoy the company of popes, kings and princes, while in the latter are only beggars, monks and apostles.

It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.

Everything that occurs in the world, in every epoch, has something that corresponds to it in ancient times.