Vladimir Lenin Quotes

The diplomat holds all acts honorable which bring him success, all things are righteous which serve his ends. If cheating is necessary, he will cheat; if lying is useful, he will lie; if bribery helps, he will bribe; if murder serves, he will order murder; if burglary, seduction, arson or forgery brings success nearer, all and each of these will be done.

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.'

Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

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.

One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship.

The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Government is force.... The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a political campaign. The commander who lost the battle through the activity of his moral nature would be the derision and jest of history.

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

No matter how healthy a man's morals may be when he enters the White House, he comes out again with a pock-marked soul.

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Sometimes you have to do bad things to get into power so you can do good things when you get there.

Political devicivness is a vice, and like many other vices, it is very attractive.

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

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

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

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.

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

Evil is the interruption of a truth by the pressure of particular or individual interests.

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.

Politics ruins the character.