machiavelli Quotes

“Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.”

“The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.”

“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”

“The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.”

“The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”

“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.”

“Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.”

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.”

“Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.”

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”