Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

The prince must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices without which it would be difficult to save the state.

If you're a governor of a big state, people sense your presence a little bit, even your fellow governors.

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.

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

A prudent ruler cannot and should not observe faith [keep his promises] when such observance is to his disadvantage.

A ruler must learn to be other than good.

.In politics a man must learn to rise above principle.

Every ruler should strive for his people to love him. But if they cannot love you, then make them fear you. Love is better, but fear will do the job.

There is no necessity for the man who means to be an orator to understand what is really just but only what would appear so to the majority of those who will give judgment; and not what is really good or beautiful but whatever will appear so; because persuasion comes from that and not from the truth.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it according to the necessity of the case.

Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty. Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of economic freedom. Where there is no market economy, the best-intentioned provisions of constitutions and laws remain a dead letter.

The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers.

Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.

Most Americans would say that they disapproved of violence. But what they really mean is that they believe it should be the monopoly of the state.

Barack Obama is an opportunist, mostly supported by the financial institutions. He had no positions on anything. He's very intelligent. If you look at his program, almost no substance. Change, hope, what's that? I mean, he had some policies, but it was almost certain that he would give them up instantly, which he did.

The princes who have done great things are the ones who have taken little account of their promises.

The powers know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. ... An army and navy represents the people's toys.

Instead of recognizing the State as ‘the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men,’ the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it not only as a final and indispensable entity, but also as, in the main, beneficent. The mass-man, ignorant of its history, regards its character and intentions as social rather than anti-social; and in that faith he is willing to put at its disposal an indefinite credit of knavery, mendacity and chicane, upon which its administrators may draw at will.

The divine impeccability of the immortal [Soviet] State turned out not only to have suppressed individual human beings but also to have defended them, to have comforted them in their weakness, to have justified their insignificance. The State had taken on its own shoulders the entire weight of responsibility; it had liberated people from the chimera of conscience.

(A ruler) cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interests or when the reason he pledged it no longer holds.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.

a successful politician does not have convictions; he has emotions.

Obama had the media; Obama had the judiciary; Obama had all kinds of support. At an Obama press conference, typical question, "What enchants you?" I mean, Obama was never challenged seriously by the media.

The measure of the state's success is that the word anarchy frightens people, while the word state does not.