Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò 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.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

Politics have no relation to morals.

~ Niccolò 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 of things.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

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

~ Niccolò Machiavelli