It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means; and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern by the arts of peace.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

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.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Men always praise antiquity and fault the present, although not always reasonably, and they are partisans of things past such that not only do they celebrate those ages that they know from what historians have preserved of them, but also those that as old men they recall having seen in their youth. And if this opinion of theirs is false, as it is most of the time, I am persuaded that there are various causes that lead them into this deception.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Men are driven by two principal impulses, either by love or by fear.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Men in general are as much affected by what a thing appears to be as by what it is, indeed they are frequently influenced more by appearances than by reality.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Never do an enemy a small injury.

— Niccolò Machiavelli

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

— Niccolò Machiavelli