Niccolo Machiavelli Able Quotations

He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.

For government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do [it] harm.

....nothing is so unhealthy or unstable as the reputation for power that is not based on one's own power.

Men are able to assist fortune but not to thwart her. They can weave her designs, but they cannot destroy them.

Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

Therefore, in order not to have to rob his subjects, to be able to defend himself, not to become poor and contemptible, and not to be forced to become rapacious, a prince must consider it of little importance if he incurs the reputation of being a miser, for this is one of the vices that permits him to rule.