511 Quotes by Niccolò Machiavelli

To keep your actions and your plans secret always has been a very good thing . .. Marcus Crassus said to one who asked him when he was going to move the army: 'Do you believe that you will be the only one not to hear the trumpet?

The peasant wants only to be left alone to prosper in peace.

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.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things..... Whenever his enemies have occasion to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable.

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.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage,