Niccolo Machiavelli
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
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 new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.
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.
Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.Collection: Government
Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy.Collection: Assuming
it is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.Collection: Regret
Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.Collection: Inspirational
A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.Collection: Ignorance
The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.Collection: Lions
Women are the most charitable creatures, and the most troublesome. He who shuns women passes up the trouble, but also the benefits. He who puts up with them gains the benefits, but also the trouble. As the saying goes, there's no honey without bees.Collection: Benefits
All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.Collection: Mistake
Power is the pivot on which everything hinges. He who has the power is always right; the weaker is always wrong.Collection: Always Wrong
The ends justifies the means.Collection: Mean
Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.Collection: Inspirational
Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.Collection: Inspirational
One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.Collection: Passion
The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.Collection: Party
People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.Collection: Revenge
You know better than I that in a Republic talent is always suspect. A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else's self-esteem.Collection: Self Esteem
There is nothing as likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt.Collection: Art
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.Collection: Wisdom
It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.Collection: People
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.Collection: Humorous
So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.Collection: Art
It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather.Collection: Men
He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.Collection: Done
A wise prince then...should never be idle in times of peace but should industriously lay up stores of which to avail himself in times of adversity so that when fortune abandons him he may be prepared to resist her blows.Collection: Wise
The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.Collection: Government
A multitude is strong while it holds together, but so soon as each of those who compose it begins ro think of his own private danger, it becomes weak and contemptible.Collection: Strong
The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox.Collection: Play
Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.Collection: Knowing
He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.Collection: War
Half of these aren't even Machiavelli. Some are Plato, Thucydides etc....doesnt anyone check these?Collection: Plato
Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or of shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be: What course will save the life and liberty of the country?Collection: Country
A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.Collection: Wise
Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.Collection: Religious
If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.Collection: Passion
You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity...servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes...and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism.Collection: Humanity
War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.Collection: Peace
For, besides what has been said, it should be borne in mind that the temper of the multitude is fickle, and that while it is easy to persuade them of a thing, it is hard to fix them in that persuasionCollection: Mind
There are three kinds of brains. The one understands things unassisted, the other understands things when shown by others, the third understands neither alone nor with the explanations of others.Collection: Brain
One must consider the final resultCollection: Finals
Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.Collection: Men
It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.Collection: Art
Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.Collection: Eye
I hold it to be of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure youCollection: Military