Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

I feel like a lot of people would quite easily stab you in the back once they get what they want. And you see that in people.

Experience has taught me to believe that, these human beans are the most insidious enemies man, with a tendency to corpulence in advanced life, can possess, though eminently friendly to youth.

Theodore betrays his friends for his own ambition.

When self-interested motives are strengthened by the apprehension of any danger, there are few persons who will not be induced by them to betray even their best friend.

There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.

Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.

I have walked away from friendships when I've realized that someone smiles to someone's face and talks about them the minute they walk out of a room. I have no room in my life for that kind of negative energy anymore.

Fear, prejudice, malice, and the love of approbation bribe a thousand men where gold bribes one.

Nobody speaks the truth when there is something they must have.

I think 80 percent of the population are really great, caring people who will help you and tell you the truth. That's just the way it is. And I think 20 percent of the population are crooks and liars. It's just a fact.

Trust makes way for treachery.

Ambition is the mother of hypocrisy and prefers to skulk in corners and dark places. It cannot endure the light of day. It is an unclean vice wallowing in the depths, always hidden, but with ever an eye to advancement.

A political career brings out the basest qualities in human nature.

There were also very great robberies and murder of our principal men. This was done in pretense indeed for the public welfare, but in reality for the hopes of gain to themselves

Everybody has their own agenda, and that makes 'Power' a dark world. There aren't any really clean characters.

You should never bury someone to forward your own personal interest. And I would never do that to anyone else on the planet.

Bobby Roode is the kind of guy who will stab anyone in the back to get what he wants.

When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don't see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt.

One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit...Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.

Our distrust of another justifies his deceit.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself.

Traitors are hated even by those whom they prefer.