Niccolo Machiavelli

The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The greatest remedy that is used against a plan of the enemy is to do voluntarily what he plans that you do by force.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self-destruction rather than self-preservation.

Niccolo Machiavelli

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.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The memory of their former freedom will not let them rest; so that the safest course is either to destroy them, or to go and live in them.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

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 peasant wants only to be left alone to prosper in peace.

Niccolo Machiavelli