It is necessary for him who lays out a state and a... -Niccolo Machiavelli

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

Niccolo Machiavelli , Writer
Related Topics
Related Authors
A. A. Gill , A. N. Wilson , Abraham Polonsky , Ada Cambridge , Adam Gopnik , Adam Hochschild , Adam Johnson
About Author

Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes to Explore

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms....
War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as abi...
There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others....
Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked....
The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. Bu...
Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions....
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act accord...
Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unabl...
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him....
Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries - for heavy ones they cannot....

Men Quotes to Explore

Negroes must be free in order to be equal, and they must be equal in order to be free... Men cannot win freedom unless they win equality. They cannot ...
The Beatles were from Liverpool. It's a hard town. The Stones weren't the hard men. They just dressed up. The Beatles were the hard men....
Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good....
It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God ...
I've always believed that no officer's life, regardless of rank, is of such great value to his country that he should seek safety in the rear... Offic...
More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent....
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not ...
Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men....
Those who excel in virtue have the best right of all to rebel, but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so....
Women may fall when there's no strength in men....