Niccolo Machiavelli Politics Quotations

Politics have no relation to morals.

....for friendships that are acquired by a price and not by greatness and nobility of character are purchased but are not owned, and at the proper moment they cannot be spent.

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

....it cannot be called ingenuity to kill one's fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; by these means one can aquire power but not glory.

....those who become princes through their skill acquire the pricipality with difficulty, buy they hold onto it with ease.

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

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.

The innovator has for enemies all who have done well under the old, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.