Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes. Below is a collection of famous Niccolo Machiavelli quotes. Here you can find the most popular and greatest quotes by Niccolo Machiavelli. Share these quotations with your friends and family.
A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
It should be noted that when he seizes a state the new ruler ought to determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He should inflict them once and for all, and not have to renew them every day.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by the sense of touch, because everyone can see, but only a few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are, and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Many have dreamed up republics and principalities that have never in truth been known to exist; the gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the marjority of men live content.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
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 to things.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantages of others.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
There are three classes of intellects one which comprehends by itself another which appreciates what others comprehend and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.
By Niccolo Machiavelli
There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.
By Niccolo Machiavelli