Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
Niccolo Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance diplomat, historian, and political philosopher of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, often described as the founder of modern political science. He served the Florentine republic in diplomatic and military roles until the return of the Medici family ended his career. The quotes below are attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli, organized by topic.
Niccolo Machiavelli on Politics
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“He who builds on the people, builds on the mud.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Princes who have done great deeds have held their good faith of little account.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, ought to prevail.”
Niccolo Machiavelli on Truth
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you.”
Niccolo Machiavelli on Virtue
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“A wise prince ought to observe some such rules, and never in peaceful times stand idle, but increase his resources with industry in such a way that they may be available to him in adversity.”
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Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”
Things actually not said by Niccolo Machiavelli
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Niccolo Machiavelli but are in fact from someone else. Did Niccolo Machiavelli say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Niccolo Machiavelli say this? No.
“The end justifies the means.”
Machiavelli is universally credited with this maxim but does not state it in this form anywhere in The Prince or the Discourses on Livy. The closest passage, in The Prince Chapter 18, says only that in the actions of princes, where there is no court of appeal, the end is regarded; the modern English aphorism is a later compression. Variants of the underlying idea appear earlier in Ovid's Heroides and in 17th-century Jesuit moral theology, particularly in Hermann Busenbaum's Medulla Theologiae Moralis (1650).