Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIWar should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.
More Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes
-
-
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
So that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
Politics have no relation to morals.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
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.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI -
I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI