Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes

“He ought to question them upon everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions.”

“A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.”

“The first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him.”

“Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.”

“Fortune . . . shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her.”

“The lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.”

“Not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half.”

“The vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be.”

“Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”

“There is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you.”

“Outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.”

“The older one gets the more convinced one becomes that his Majesty King Chance does three-quarters of the business of this miserable universe.”

“A prince ought also to show himself a patron of ability, and to honour the proficient in every art.”

“Where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great.”

“How one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.”

“A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel.”

“The people do not wish to be ruled nor oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles wish to rule and oppress the people.”

“You can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire not to be oppressed.”

“One who becomes a prince through the favour of the people ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they only ask not to be oppressed by him.”

“It is necessary for a prince to have the people friendly.”

“A wise prince ought to . . . never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity.”

“Friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured.”

“This is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous.”

“It is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive.”

“Prudence consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, and for choice to take the lesser evil.”

“And there is nothing wastes so rapidly as liberality, for even whilst you exercise it you lose the power to do so.”

“and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men.”

“And of my loyalty none could doubt, because having always kept faith I could not now learn how to break it; for he who has been faithful and honest, as I have, cannot change his nature; and my poverty is a witness to my honesty.”

Caesar obtained empire by liberality, and many others have reached the highest positions by having been liberal, and by being considered so, I answer: Either you are a prince in fact, or in a way to become one.

“Thus it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to declare yourself with arms.”

“Virtue against fury shall advance the fight,”

“It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means; and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern by the arts of peace.”

“Do you laugh because you are successful or because another is unfortunate?”