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Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.

Niccolo Machiavelli

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Niccolo Machiavelli
Age: 58 †
Born: 1469
Born: May 3
Died: 1527
Died: June 22
Diplomat
Historian
Military Theorist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Political Theorist
Politician
Translator
Writer
Florence
Tuscany
Nicolo Machiavelli
Niccolo Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Nicolò Machiavelli
N. Machiavelli
Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
Machiavelli
Men
Hand
Eye
Everyone
Hands
Appear
Feel
Sees
Feels
Generally
Every
Judge
Really
Judging

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The ends justifies the means.
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There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.
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Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.
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Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.
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States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications the first bad weather kills them
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Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
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We must distinguish between those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing when, however, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered.
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Without doubt, ferocious and disordered men are much weaker than timid and ordered ones. For order chases fear from men and disorder lessens ferocity.
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We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.
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Whoever takes it upon himself to establish a commonwealth and prescribe laws must presuppose all men naturally bad, and that they will yield to their innate evil passions as often as they can do so with safety.
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There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
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To know in war how to recognize an opportunity and seize it is better than anything else.
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Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Those who either from imprudence or want of sagacity avoid doing so, are always overwhelmed with servitude and poverty for faithful servants are always servants, and honest men are always poor nor do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent.
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And when he is obliged to take the life of any one, to do so when there is a proper justification and manifest reason for it but above all he must abstain from taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
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The world has always been the same and there is always as much good fortune as bad in it.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it but when they are free to choose and can do just as they please, confusion and disorder become rampant.
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The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.
Niccolo Machiavelli
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For the mob is always impressed by appearances and by results, and the world is composed of the mob.
Niccolo Machiavelli