Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

I think Obama is handling his image very well, but I think he lacks boldness.

Nixon's pretense was to be less than he was—less thoughtful, less introverted, less skeptical and analytical, less cerebral—to present himself deliberately as an Average American: patriotic, conventionally religious and responsible, gregarious, sports-loving, hardworking and hard-nosed.

It’s not only what you do in politics. It’s what you appear to do.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

A prince... must learn from the fox and the lion... One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who act simply as lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.

Sometimes heads of state have to make statements for [local] public consumption.

Politics is the management of expectations.

Creative betrayal is the essence of successful statesmanship.

The Prime Minister wins debate after debate and loses battle after battle. The country is beginning to say that he fights debates like a war and the war like a debate.

In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be.

And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.

I do what I do. Barack Obama does what politicians do.

There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.

How laudable it is for a prince to keep good faith and live with integrity, and not with astuteness, every one knows. Still the experience of our times shows those princes to have done great things who have had little regard for good faith, and have been able by astuteness to confuse men's brains, and who have ultimately overcome those who have made loyalty their foundation.

Politics is not a science...but an art.

You keep wondering whether people will see that Barack Obama is a liar and not very bright.

Obama hasn't shown the leadership that has allowed the center to go towards him. He's got his base now after the stimulus bill, after the latest jobs plan, but he doesn't have the center. The center is wide open.

The only way you approach politics and seek elective office is to move forward. For me to look back in anger or with any rancor would be a mistake.

Every Country hath its Machiavel.

I did love that scene in the movie [ "Our Brand Is Crisis"] because it's like "The Wizard of Oz." You see the backstage action of politics. You have access to see behind the curtain. You see how it's all one big advertisement.

The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.

War is like government, a matter of tact.

There's a very big difference between campaigning and governing.

Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art.

The Philosophy of Princes is to dive into the Secrets of men, leaving the secrets of nature to those that have spare time.