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
Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.
One arises from a low to a high station more often by using fraud instead of force.
The state is not an organism capable of bringing either moral or material improvements to the populace...but merely a vehicle of power for the men and party in power.
Cruelties should be committed all at once.
Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.
For this is the tragedy of man circumstances change, but he does not.
For without invention, no one was ever a great man in his own trade.
A blast in the human breast is nothing to boast of.
It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.
He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.
Nothing feeds upon itself as liberality does.
How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.
Never do your enemy a minor injury.
The world has always been the same; and there is always as much good fortune as bad in it.