Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy.

A great philosopher in the wrong is like a beacon on the reefs which says to seamen: steer clear of me.

You can have a value system and be unable to totally live it.

Those who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed; and are not ashamed of what they ought to be - such men, embracing erroneous views, enter the woeful path.

Many are really virtuous who cannot explain what virtue is . . . But the powers themselves in reality perform their several operations with sufficient constancy and uniformity in persons of good health whatever their opinions be about them . . .

Human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth.

Moralizing and morals are two entirely different things and are always found in entirely different people

Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature

Every mind has its particular standard of good and bad, and of right and wrong. This standard is made by what one has experienced through life, by what one has seen or heard; it also depends upon one's belief in a certain religion, one's birth in a certain nation and origin in a certain race. But what can really be called good or bad, right or wrong, is what comforts the mind and what causes it discomfort. It is not true, although it appears so, that it is discomfort that causes wrongdoing. In reality, it is wrongdoing which causes discomfort, and it is right-doing which gives comfort.

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.

Science and technology are what we can do; morality is what we agree we should or should not do.

I have yet to meet a man as fond of high moral conduct as he is of outward appearances.

Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such a way that pain shall not be inflicted.

The content of scientific theory itself offers no moral foundation for the personal conduct of life.

You can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

The way things are does not determine the way they ought to be

Can a man who lies, cheats, steals, and sometimes does violence to other people be a man of honor? Kolabati looked into his eyes. "He can if he lies to liars, cheats cheaters, steals from thieves, and limits his violence to those who are violent.

Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.

I do not believe that a man should be restrained in his daily actions by being afraid of punishment after death or that he should do things only because in this way he will be rewarded after he dies. This does not make sense. The proper guidance during the life of a man should be the weight that he puts upon ethics and the amount of consideration that he has for others.

To amend mankind, moralists should show them man, not as he is, but as he ought to be.

Conscience is merely our own judgment of the right or wrong of our actions, and so can never be a safe guide unless enlightened by the word of God.

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

The eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out" is despicable, but nevertheless, it is the one thing you can never get away from.

All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.