Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes & Sayings (Page 6)

“He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.”

“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”

“Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.”

“Politics have no relation to morals.”

“There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.”

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”

“Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.”

“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot.”

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