Machiavellian Quotes

Talleyrand is a silk stocking filled with mud.

Maniacal self-promoter …. Makes Machiavelli look like a simple, straightforward kinda guy.

The White House is another world. Expediency is everything.

Machiavelli had some cold tricks for people who wanted to be demagogues and wanted to take over the world.

He [Martin Van Buren] is an artful, cunning, intriguing, selfish, speculating lawyer, who, by holding lucrative offices for more than half his life, has contrived to amass a princely fortune, and is now seeking the Presidency, principally for sordid gain, and to gratify the most selfish ambition.

Runty little bastard…just about the most dangerous person around [with a] powerful constituency.

I think George Bush is one of the most duplicitous presidents we've ever had.

I think there are people, and I do not mean this to be disparaging, there are people like Jay Mohr and Jeremy Piven where they just give you that vibe, 'This guy's going to play someone a little venal.'

I'm Machiavelli's offspring, I'm the king of New York, king of the coast, one hand, I juggle them both.

As to [Aaron] Burr, there is nothing in his favour … he is bankrupt beyond redemption except by the plunder of his country. His public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement…. He is truly the Cataline of America.

In a certain sense, this guy - who is one of the most evil people in the book - he's not really that bad at running the show, because he knows what he's doing, he's smart and he's got the big picture in mind. He's like the Godfather.

This man [Aaron Burr] has no principles, public or private. As a politician, his sole spring of action is an inordinate ambition.

Such is human nature, in the gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

I love Robin Wright's character in 'House of Cards' because she's a bona fide villain. She's a not-nice person in a believable way; you can see her working in the world.

A good man can be stupid and still be good. But a bad man must have brains.

[Lyndon Johnson was] the epitome of the unprincipled politician.

A man of irregular and insatiable ambition ...who ought not be trusted with the reins of government

He [Henry Clay] is a bad man, an impostor, a creator of wicked schemes.

What attracted me to Jimmy Bulger were the various facets of his personality and his humanity because I felt that the only way I could approach playing a character like him was to find his human side first and then map that out to see where it took the turn. He was a very complicated man.

[He] has the temper of a hedgehog, the adhesiveness of a barnacle, the vanity of a peacock, the vindictiveness of a Corsican, and the duplicity of the devil.

I also wanted to have fun with it. I wanted to have the scope, which I felt Merlin has, in his Machiavellian bi-polar way. He's not to be trusted, yet he is fighting for this great power and is really a master, to some degree, in orchestrating Camelot and King Arthur. He's a strange, dark devious character, and I just wanted to have fun, and get away from the cloak and long beard and pointy hat.

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

I'm usually the character people love to hate, because I used to play bad girls all the time.

I wouldn't say Jamie is an evil genius. I'm not sure he's evil and I'm not sure he's a genius.

Iago is one of the most liked characters in Shakespeare's canon, and he's the most evil, most extraordinarily manipulative person in history. He says the worst, most politically incorrect things, even for the time the play is set in - and yet audiences adore that character.