Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

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

The end must justify the means.

We live in a world where everyone thinks they do the right thing, so they are entitled to do the wrong thing. So ends can justify the means.

The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.

If the end does not justify the means - what can?

Intelligence work has one moral law—it is justified by results.

We ought to see clearly that the end does justify the means

If the ends don't justify the means, what does?

I think in general the ends do not justify 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.

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

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.'

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.

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

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

Sometimes the right thing gets done for the wrong reason and sometimes, unfortunately, the wrong thing gets done for the right reason.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

It seems that the world considers whoever gets benefit is the virtuous one

The problem with absolutist beliefs that they can get you into traps in which the ends justify the means.

The ideologue says “whatever is right works.” The pragmatist says “whatever works is right.”

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

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

All methods are sacred if they are internally necessary. All methods are sins if they are not justified by internal necessity.

The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.