Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes.
Before all else, be armed.
It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.
To understand the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to understand the nature of the prince, one must be of the people.
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.
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.
One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles which makes impossible all understanding between those who speak the same language and have the same interests.
When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred.
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.
We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.
