511 Quotes by Niccolò Machiavelli

Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.

One can generally say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain; and while you work for their good they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons when danger is far away; but when it comes nearer to you, they turn away.

It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain.

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.

If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.

And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways.

It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they, are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

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