511 Quotes by Niccolò Machiavelli

And if, to be sure, sometimes you need to conceal a fact with words, do it in such a way that it does not become known, or, if it does become known, that you have a ready and quick defense.

To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.

Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.

For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying

Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows.

May princes know then that they begin to lose (their) state at that hour in which they begin to break the laws and those customs and usages that are ancient and under which men have lived for a long time

In order not to annul our free will, I judge it true that Fortune may be mistress of one half our actions but then even she leaves the other half, or almost, under our control.

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.