Top 250 Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 5 of 6

201. “Results are often obtained by impetuosity and daring which could never have been obtained by ordinary methods.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

202. “Never lead your soldiers to battle if you have not first confirmed their spirit and known them to be without fear and ordered; and never test them except when you see that they hope to win.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

203. “Men as a whole judge more with their eyes than with their hands.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

204. “No one should therefore fear that he cannot accomplish what others have accomplished, for, men are born, live, and die in quite the same way they always have.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

205. “Human beings remain constant in their methods of conduct.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

206. “Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

207. “A prince ought to have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

208. “Ognuno vede quello che tu pari, pochi sentono quello che tu se.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

209. “Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

210. “There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not. It is simply unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

211. “A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

212. “The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

213. “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.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

214. “Change has no constituency.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

215. “There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

216. “Delusion gives you more happiness than truth gives to me. For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

217. “We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

218. “In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

219. “Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself; for that power is produced by him either through craft or force; and both of these are suspected by the one who has been raised to power.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

220. “And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

221. “I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

222. “Men may second fortune, but they cannot thwart her.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

223. “When fortune wishes to bring mighty events to a successful conclusion, she selects some man of spirit and ability who knows how to seize the opportunity she offers.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

224. “Whoever takes it upon himself to establish a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

225. “Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

226. “For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

227. “War is a profession by which a man cannot live honorably; an employment by which the soldier, if he would reap any profit, is obliged to be false, rapacious, and cruel.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

228. “Men walk almost always in the paths trodden by others, proceeding in their actions by imitation.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

229. “The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

230. “States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

231. “It is the duty of a man of honor to teach others the good which he has not been able to do himself because of the malignity of the times, that this good finally can be done by another more loved in heaven.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

232. “In our own days we have seen no princes accomplish great results save those who have been accounted miserly.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

233. “To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

234. “The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

235. “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.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

236. “The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

237. “Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

238. “Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

239. “The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

240. “Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

241. “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.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

242. “I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

243. “And above all you ought to guard against leading an army to fight which is afraid or which is not confident of victory. For the greatest sign of an impending loss is when one does not believe one can win.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

244. “Then also pretexts for seizing property are never wanting, and one who begins to live by rapine will always find some reason for taking the goods of others, whereas causes for taking life are rarer and more quickly destroyed.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

245. “Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

246. “Knowing how to fight made men more bold, because no one fears doing what it seems to him he has learned to do. Therefore, the ancients wanted their citizens to be trained in every warlike action.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

247. “My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

248. “When settling disputes between his subjects, he should ensure that his judgement is irrevocable; and he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams of trying to deceive or trick him.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

249. “When they remain in garrison, soldiers are maintained with fear and punishment; when they are then led to war, with hope and reward.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

250. “Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli