NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

Politics have no relation to morals.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

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

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

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

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

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.

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

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.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

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.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.

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.

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.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.