Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn't worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call 'the problem of dirty hands.'

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil, but one must never label a necessary evil as good.

Power shifts your thinking from what is right and wrong to what is necessary

Life's not black-and-white. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be either good or evil.

The prince must not mind incurring the scandal of those vices without which it would be difficult to save the state.

Those who have the most power - whether famous TV anchors, rich Hollywood moguls, judges, Members of Congress, or the president of the United States - must decide how to exert that power: for corruption or for good.

To say that corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of ends and principles.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.

We no longer admit any other truth than that which is expedient; for there is no worse error than the truth that may weaken the arm that is fighting.

When you choose the lesser of two evils, always remember that it is still an evil.

Nobody has a franchise on what is good.

I don't think good and evil are polarized.

I don't think anybody's all good or all bad.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

If there is no God, the labels 'good' and 'evil' are merely opinions. They are substitutes for 'I like it' and 'I don't like it.' They are not objective realities.

You can compromise between good, better, and best, and you can compromise between bad and worse and terrible. But you can't compromise between good and evil. And now people look at the other side as a completely different kind of animal and say, 'They are taking the country down the road to purgatory.' It's complete intolerance.

A statesman cannot afford to be a moralist.

Even good people are obliged to deceive.

If religion cannot restrain evil, it cannot claim effective power for good.

Evil, when we are in its power, is not felt as evil, but as a necessity, even a duty.

Governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect.