ruling tactics Quotes

To rule without being felt…is the great mystery of policy.

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.

To rule with the help of one's enemies is always the worst kind of policy.

In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it.

Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions...Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress, and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily.

A wise ruler takes advice, but should never be seen to take it. Let them think you know more than you do. It will not harm them, and it will help you.

Still, a prince should make himself feared in such a way that if he does not gain love, he at any rate avoids hatred; for fear and the absence of hatred may well go together, and will be always attained by one who abstains from interfering with the property of his citizens and subjects or with their women.

....those who become princes through their skill acquire the pricipality with difficulty, buy they hold onto it with ease.