Top 250 Niccolò Machiavelli Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “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

202. “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

203. “Change has no constituency.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

204. “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

205. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

207. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

209. “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

210. “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

211. “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

212. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

214. “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

215. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

218. “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

219. “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

220. “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

221. “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

222. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

224. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

227. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

229. “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

230. “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

231. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

233. “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

234. “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

235. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

237. “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

238. “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

239. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

241. “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

242. “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

243. “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

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli

245. “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

246. “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

247. “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

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. “For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.”

— Niccolò Machiavelli

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

— Niccolò Machiavelli