Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelliwas an Italian Renaissance historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer. He has often been called the founder of modern political science. He was for many years a senior official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth3 May 1469
CityFlorence, Italy
CountryItaly
By the delusions of seeming good the people are often misled to desire their own ruin; and they are frequently influenced by great hopes and brave promises.
A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.
One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised. . . . Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.
It is much safer for the prince to be feared than loved, but he ought to avoid making himself hated.
There are three kinds of minds: first those that attain insight and understanding of things by their own means, then those that recognize what is right when others explain it to them, and finally those that are capable of neither one nor the other.
You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes...
With difficulty he is beaten who can estimate his own forces and those of his enemy.
The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.
The prince must be a lion, but he must also know how to play the fox.
Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.
It is a common failing of man not to take account of tempests during fair weather.
The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.
If the present be compared with the remote past, it is easily seen that in all cities and in all peoples there are the same desires and the same passions as there always were.