“A man who wishes to act entirely up to this professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“A prince should have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else to study than the art of war, its rules and discipline.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Above all things, good policy is to prevent treasuries and monies in a state from being gathered into a few hands.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Although you may have fortresses, they will not save you if you are hated by the people.”

Chapters: 17. True Leaders

Comments: Click to comment

“Always choose the lesser evil never imagining that you can decide on a perfectly safe course. You can never avoid one trouble without running into another one.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Appear as you may wish to be.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“For our country, wrong is right.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Injuries should be done all at one time—being tasted less, they offend less. Benefits should be given little by little—so that the flavor of them may last longer.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Make men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you... Those who do otherwise are either overthrown by flatterers, or so often changed by varying opinions that they fall into contempt.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few see clearly.”

Chapters: 21. Following Empty Heart

Comments: Click to comment

“One of the great secrets of the day is to know how to take possession of popular prejudices and passions, in such a way as to introduce a confusion of principles”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“The first opinion one forms of someone and of his understanding, is by seeing those he has around him.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“The majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“The more sand that escapes from our life’s hourglass, the more clearly we can see through it”

Chapters: 76. The Soft and Flexible

Comments: Click to comment

“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“There are 3 classes of intellects: one that comprehends by itself; one that appreciates what others comprehend; and a third that neigher comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others. The first is excellent, the second good, the third useless.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“To experience constant success, it's necessary to change habits and attitudes, to recreate yourself according to the changing times.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“we should wish to be both; but since love and feared can hardly exist together and if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight, they fight from ambition.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past. Human events always resemble those of earlier times because human nature doesn't change, people are always animated by the same passions and so produce the same results.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

Chapters:

Comments: Click to comment

“The contradiction between the teaching of The Prince and that of the Discourses on Livy and the History of Florence shows that this profound political thinker has so far been studied only by superficial or corrupt readers. The Court of Rome sternly prohibited his book. I can well believe it; for it is that Court it most clearly portrays.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712 – 1778 CE
from Social Contract

Comments: Click to comment

“Very few who talk of The Prince have ever read more than a few sentences in it. But fewer still have read the work of Machiavelli which is the saner, the more rounded, the more comprehensive work, The Discourses... The Prince is great because of its intensity, The Discourses are great because of their variety; if The Prince is great because it is polemical, The Discourses are great because they have balance; The Discourses are great because they give us the philosophy of organic unity and the conditions under which alone a culture can survive.

”

— Max Lerner 1902 – 1992 CE
(Maxwell Alan)

Comments: Click to comment

“The Prince—the first ever handbook on opportunism—which advised rulers to 'learn how not to be virtuous' in order to maintain their power.”

— Roman Krznaric 1
Practical, popular, modern philosopher

from Carpe Diem Regained (2017)

Comments: Click to comment