Quotes By Author: Niccolò Machiavelli

“Men ought to attempt everything and fear nothing.”

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

“Is it better to be loved or feared?”

“I hold strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.”

“A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.”

“Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.”

“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”

“Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.”