Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

War is but an instrument of international policy.

When civil war is regularly established in a country, and when the nation is divided into conflicting armies and opposing camps, the two parties in such war may be dealt with by other powers as if they were separate communities, and that such other powers may take part with one side or the other, according to their sympathies and interests, just as they might in a war between separate and independent nations.

A prince is also respected when he is a true friend and a true enemy; that is, when he declares himself on the side of one prince against another without any reservation.

We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.

To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this, I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult - to begin a war and to end it.

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

If your government had given me a thousandth of the sum it spent to depose me, I could have won that war.

It is not cowardly, quite the contrary, to seek to meet the adversary and know his intentions. However, it is cowardly, shameful and treasonable to lay down arms.

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

Peace enforcement is a much more difficult kind of operation than peacekeeping.

Let him (the king) also appoint an ambassador who is versed in all sciences, who understands hints, expressions of the face and gestures, who is honest, skilful, and of noble family. Such an ambassador is commended to a king who is loyal, honest, skilful, possessing a good memory, who knows the proper place and time for action, who is handsome, fearless, and eloquent. For the ambassador alone makes kings' allies and separates allies; the ambassador transacts that business by which kings are disunited or not.

Law stands mute in the midst of arms

In war ... diplomacy is the handmaiden of the necessities of the War Office.

A union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets … has no charm for me.

We sit there because there is a war going on. But once we have peace we don’t want to be sitting on your Suez Canal.

I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms, and settle matters by negotiation; but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank heaven he has put it in my power.

In order to manage such affairs as war and peace, treaties, alliances, marriage, the means of increasing one’s territories, the loyalty of the people, parties and other business of the kingdom, it seems to me that there is no more useful knowledge than the study of history.

The United Kingdom will not take a position on the recognition of the Confederacy until the fortunes of arms or the more peaceful mode of recognition shall have more clearly determined the respective positions of the two belligerents.

Treat cabinet officers as friends but understand that they are also enemies.

In politics, it is difficult to choose one’s friends.

War is, in fact, an extension of politics, and in any war, military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war.