29 Quotes About Machiavelli

..it happens in all human affairs that we never seek to escape one mischief without falling into another. Prudence therefore consists in knowing how to distinguish degrees of disadvantage, and in accepting a less evil as a good.

I thought there was no use for me in reading Sun Tzu and Machiavelli because I am neither a warrior nor a politician, but it turned out to be useful when I married

It is a common fault of men not to reckon on storms in fair weather.

Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, that so they may be more fully relished.

When one would ask most modern artists, poets, writers and other status quo fueled semi-intellectuals who Machiavelli was - was that an opera singer?

A Warrior knows that the ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means...

In general you must either pamper people or destroy them; harm them just a little and they’ll hit back; harm them seriously and they won’t be able to. So if you’re going to do people harm, make sure you needn’t worry about their reaction.

Finally, this principle and its corollary lead to a conclusion, deduced as an imperative: that the objective of the exercise of power is to reinforce, strengthen and protect the principality, but with this last understood to mean not the objective ensemble of its subjects and territory, but rather the prince's relation with what he owns, with the territory he has inherited or acquired, and with his subjects.

Kautilya makes Machiavelli look like Mother Teresa