Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes on Politics
Machiavelli's The Prince (composed 1513, published 1532) and Discourses on Livy founded the modern science of politics by treating it as an autonomous domain to be analyzed through historical example rather than judged against an external moral or theological standard. Virtù — the prince's strategic excellence — must be exercised against fortuna, the unpredictable contingency of events, and the prudent ruler will sometimes have to act in ways that ordinary morality condemns in order to preserve the political community whose survival is the prior condition of any moral life at all. The Discourses develop the republican alternative: a free political community endures only through the virtue of its citizens and the institutional channeling of class conflict between the people and the great.
Quotes
-
“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
I say that every prince must desire to be considered merciful and not cruel. He must, however, take care not to misuse this mercifulness. ... A prince, therefore, must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and confident; for, with a very few examples, he will be more merciful than those who, from excess of tenderness, allow disorders to arise, from -
Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”
-
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.”
-
Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“He who builds on the people, builds on the mud.”
-
“Princes who have done great deeds have held their good faith of little account.”
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. You must know, then, t -
“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
A variant translation of: "And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him." - The Prince (1513), Ch. 22 -
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.”
-
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.”
-
Attributed to Niccolo Machiavelli:
“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”