Top 250 Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

152. “It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

153. “One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

154. “Men are so stupid and concerned with their present needs, they will always let themselves be deceived.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

155. “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

156. “Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

157. “For this is the tragedy of man circumstances change, but he does not.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

158. “Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

159. “And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

160. “The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

161. “You must never believe that the enemy does not know how to conduct his own affairs. Indeed, if you want to be deceived less and want to bear less danger, the more the enemy is weak or the less the enemy is cautious, so much more must you esteem him.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

162. “You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes...”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

163. “A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

164. “Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it; but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

165. “Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

166. “Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

167. “So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honor, they are satisfied.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

168. “But in Republics there is a stronger vitality, a fiercer hatred, a keener thirst for revenge. The memory of their former freedom will not let them rest; so that the safest course is either to destroy them, or to go and live in them.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

169. “Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

170. “It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

171. “Appear as you may wish to be.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

172. “For one change always leaves a dovetail into which another will fit.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

173. “Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

174. “Men seldom rise from low condition to high rank without employing either force or fraud, unless that rank should be attained either by gift or inheritance.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

175. “We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

176. “The world has always been the same; and there is always as much good fortune as bad in it.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

177. “Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

178. “Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful odanger and covetous ogain.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

179. “Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

180. “The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

181. “Few men are brave by nature, but good discipline and experience make many so.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

182. “Republics have a longer life and enjoy better fortune than principalities, because they can profit by their greater internal diversity. They are the better able to meet emergencies.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

184. “War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

185. “For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

186. “Men generally decide upon a middle course, which is most hazardous, for they know neither how to be entirely good nor entirely bad.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

187. “The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

188. “So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

189. “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.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

190. “All the armed prophets conquered; all the unarmed ones perished.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

191. “You must know, then, that there are two methods of fighting, the one by law, the other by force: the first method is that of men, the second of beasts; but as the first method is often insufficient, one must have recourse to the second.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

192. “He who makes war his profession cannot be otherwise than vicious. War makes thieves, and peace brings them to the gallows.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

193. “A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

194. “When men receive favours from someone they expected to do them ill, they are under a greater obligation to their benefactor...”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

195. “Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

196. “He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

197. “It is a foolish prince who entrusts the safety of his lands to hired men.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

198. “Necessities can be many, but the one that is stronger is that which constrains you to win or to die.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

199. “Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

200. “For it must be noted, that men must either be caressed or else annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his vengeance.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli