Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

And, you see, we are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense.

Terrorists are dangerous, not because they are immoral or amoral but because they are hyper moral. They justify their behavior in profoundly moral language.

How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?

War justifies everything.

And if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered.

In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn't be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.

Men think they may justly do that for which they have a precedent.

There isn't a definite right and wrong anyway. Sometimes we do what seems wrong, but we have good reasons for doing it, so it's not wrong after all.

Justification is a remarkable thing-takes all those solid lines and blurs them, so that honor becomes as supple as a willow, and ethics burst like soap bubbles.

...war is just to those for whom it is necessary, and arms are clear of impiety for those who have no hope left but in arms.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! . . . . . . Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is-the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

Opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses.

Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women.

Secession, like any other REVOLUTIONARY ACT, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms.

A war, or any wild-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.

In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.

Violence just hurts those who are already hurt...Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.

When Death to either shall come - I pray it be first to me.

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.

As water has no constant form, there are in war no constant conditions.

Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things.

There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.