Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

We shall perish by guile just as we slew.

Dishonesty is so grasping it would deceive God himself, were it possible.

No other mammal is as deceitful as the human being.

I fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don't have brains enough to be honest.

Deceit is the game of petty spirits, and that is by nature a woman's quality.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Cunning leads to knavery. It is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery. Only lying makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.

It's good that I managed to hoodwink so many people. I am actually not that nice a person.

If Edith Wharton lived in the Age of Innocence, surely we now live in the Age of Deception.

The most ingenious men continually pretend to condemn tricking--but this is often done that they may use it more conveniently themselves, when some great occasion or interest offers itself to them.

I wouldn't know how to fool a man any more. My deceiving days seem so long ago.

I liked Dallas better because it was more deceptive, you could do more with it.

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.

The art of using deceit and cunning grow continually weaker and less effective to the user.

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.

In fact, to gull a fool seems to me an exploit worthy of a witty man.

This is very clever. They have created a system to cheat.

People always overdo the matter when they attempt deception.

O, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. That’s usually enough.

Secrecy is the badge of fraud.

We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies.