Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

All the armed prophets have conquered, all the unarmed have perished.

The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare, because the states within which we live came into existence largely through conquest, civil strife, or struggles for independence.

All armed prophets have been victorious and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.

The Artillery Barrage: The last reasoning of Kings.

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything, I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The Ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more disputes in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

War is the supreme form of prestige.

Every little advantage is of great moment when men have to come to blows.

Battles decide everything.

When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped to go rolling down.

...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.

Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral; whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.

Wars are to be won with swords and spears, not with rice and salt.

Powder is but a thing of yesterday, and war is as old as the human race--unhappily.

War is the science of destruction.

Revolutionaries who come to power by force of arms usually have great crimes in their background. Leaders who survive campaigns by great powers to destroy them do not survive because they observe the niceties of law. Subversives who shape world events by covert action and violence work in shadows and detest the light of day.

The brave man, indeed, calls himself lord of the land, through his iron, through his blood.

Nobody knows through how many thousands of years fighting men have made a place for themselves while the weak and peaceable have gone to the wall.

Our national aims can be realized only by military means. The matter needs no further elaboration or interpretation.

Let none presume to tell me that the pen is preferable to the sword.

War isn't civilized. War is failure. It's the ultimate result of a breakdown in public policy, and soldiers are the machines that handle that breakdown. In warfare, you're taught to do whatever you have to, to stay alive.

Violence always leads to more violence…. To the conqueror comes a conqueror.

One active campaign, a smart action, and burning two or three their towns, will set everything to rights.

I don't know what is stronger or what is weaker.The whole language of strength and weaknesses is irrelevant,because when you use arms you do not use ballots, and public opinion is unimportant, and they shoot at their opponents.

War is delightful for those who don't know it