« 
 »

Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

Posted by nabil medawar in Famous Authors, Quotations, Words of wisdom, tags:
  • Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was an Italian philosopher /writer, and is considered one of the main founders of modern political science.He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and a playwright, but foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. ~ Wikipedia
  • A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
  • A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
  • Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
  • Before all else, be armed.
  • Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
  • Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
  • God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
  • Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.
  • He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.
  • If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
  • I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
  • It is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman.
  • It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.
  • It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
  • It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
  • It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
  • It is the nature of men to be as much bound by the benefits that they confer as by those they receive.
  • Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.
  • Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
  • Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.
  • Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
  • Men love according to their own will, and fear according to the will of the prince. A wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control, and not in that of others.
  • Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
  • Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
  • Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.
  • Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
  • Never was anything great achieved without danger.
  • Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
  • One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
  • One never finds anything perfectly pure and… exempt from danger.
  • One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
  • Only those means of security are good, are certain, are lasting, that depend on yourself and your own vigor.
  • Politics have no relation to morals.
  • Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
  • 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.
  • Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces.
  • The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
  • The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
  • The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
  • The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
  • 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.
  • There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.
  • There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
  • There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
  • 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.
  • There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.
  • 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.
  • Truly, man is a spectacularly vain, diverse, and fluctuating subject. It is hard to establish a specific and uniform judgment on him.
  • We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
  • Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
  • Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
  • Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.
  • Share/Bookmark

You may also wish to read

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 5:47 am and is filed under Famous Authors, Quotations, Words of wisdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed.