Victor Hugo Quotes

What this White House really needs is a chief of staff who can read Machiavelli in the original Italian.

These books ain't window dressing. I think Machiavelli's the most sophisticated writer outside of Shakespeare. Way ahead of his time. Such a manipulative person. Everything he accomplished he did by kissin' ass.

There's no way the writing staff of 'Game of Thrones' haven't read 'The Art of War.' There's definitely an influence on 'Game of Thrones' from this book in both a general way and on the character of Lord Baelish and his strategies.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

Politics is nothing but opportunism.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.

As readers, we sense when the game is being played for real and when something else is afoot: pride, showmanship, the pursuit of power, self-aggrandizement, revenge, making money. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but I dislike closing a book with the sense that I've been had.

The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.

Realize that the game of life is the game of, to some extent, being taken advantage of by people who make a science of it. Whether they are in government or personal life or in business, they're everywhere.

It's foolish to call Chanakya an Indian Machiavelli. Rather, Machiavelli was possibly an Italian Chanakya.

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

The world is ruled only by consideration of advantages.

Frankly, I wouldn't put anything past him [Nixon] and those damn technocrats. You can't begin to compete with the professional Nixonites when it comes to deception.... If Nixon told them to nationalize the railroads, they'd have nationalized the railroads. If he'd told them to exterminate the Jews, they'd have exterminated the Jews.

If Mr. Monroe should ever fill the Chair of Government, he may let the French Minister frame his Speeches.... There is abundant evidence of his being a mere tool in the hands of the French government

Councilors of state sit plotting their high chess-game whereof the pawns are men.

He who is involved in realpolitik must think only of the last twenty-four hours.

If you would know the depth of meanness of human nature, you have got to be a prime minister running for a general election.

… a man steeped in falsehood … who had recourse to the lie whenever it suits his convenience …. He would sell his grandmother for any advantage.

Politics is the science of always using the most convenient means in accord with one's own interests.

Creative betrayal is the essence of successful statesmanship.

… the tools of despotism and corruption

Its [the Bush family’s] sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution