Niccolò Machiavelli

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

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

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

Before all else, be armed.

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

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.

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

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.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

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.

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

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

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.

A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.

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

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

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.

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

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

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.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.

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

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

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.

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 first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.

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.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.

Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.

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

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.