Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

…to make a commonwealth is to divide it into parties, which setteth them at perpetual variance, the one party endeavouring to preserve their eminence and inequality, and the other to attain their equality.

The class struggle, to which Marx has specially drawn attention, is a real factor, the tokens of which are to be found on every page of history. But the struggle is not confined only to two classes: the proletariat and the capitalist; it occurs between an infinite number of groups with different interests, and above all between the elites contending for power. The existence of these groups may vary in duration, they may be based on permanent or more or less temporary characteristics. In the most savage peoples, and perhaps in all, sex determines two of these groups.

Man has set man against man, Washed against unwashed.

Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for suppressing another.

The struggle for power in our day lies not between Crown and people, or between a caste of nobles and a bourgeoisie, but between the classes who have property and the classes who have none.

'The Prince' was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. 'Rules for Radicals' is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

Indeed, the existence of class, of social hierarchy, is as old as man himself. It prevails in the jungle where strength determines hierarchy; among men, it has also been savagely the same, whereby rulers vested with power through personal combat, or through lineal heritage as in the case of royalty, ravage their subjects.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

Is the great working class oppressed? Yes, undoubtedly it is. God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little.

The most dreaded of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich … will come and come with all its horrors.

The Privileged and the People form Two Nations.

What the poor did to the poor was the business of the poor, not the business of the proper people who ran the city.

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them

The "have nots" outnumber the "haves." No wonder the ruling class of every country grows more and more alarmed.

An issue between a people and a class

One of the most constant laws of history is … immediately [if] any one class becomes preponderant—nobles, clergy, army, or the people—it speedily tends to enslave others.

There are no great lords who possess everything and a herd of people who have nothing

A city in which the nobles obtain their desire, is nothing else but a company of masters and slaves ordered to the satisfaction of the avarice and dishonest wishes of the ruling class.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

In the course of time, however, the insolence of the nobles … induced the people to rise…. The nobility, to save a portion of their power, were forced to yield a share of it to the people.

In the beginning, all men were alike and they lived in peace and they shared among them what they had. But now there are two kinds of men, the master and the slave. But there are more of us than there are of you, many more. And we are stronger than you, better than you. All that is good in mankind belongs to us.

… in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat – or get eaten up