Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Machiavelli suggests that effective governance requires an understanding of humanity's darker tendencies.
In this quote, Niccolo Machiavelli argues that a successful ruler must assume a fundamentally pessimistic view of human nature. He believes that people are inherently self-serving and will act wickedly if given the opportunity, thus shaping laws and governance to account for these tendencies to maintain order and control.
Themes
GovernanceHuman NatureWickednessLawsControl
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a political discussion about the role of laws in society.
More from Niccolo Machiavelli
All quotes →For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
And here one must not that hatred is acquired just as much by means of good actions as by bad ones; and so, as I said above, if a prince wishes to maintain the state, he is often obliged not to be good; because whenever that group which you believe you need to support you is corrupted, whether it be the common people, the soldiers, or the nobles, it is to your advantage to follow their inclinations in order to satisfy them; and then good actions are your enemy.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms.
Niccolo MachiavelliRead
Similar quotes
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
Francis BaconRead
Pride is the parent of destruction; pride eats the mind and the heart and the soul alive.
Anne RiceRead
He, then, that would really, thoroughly, and acceptably mortify any disquieting lust, let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though but one is so to him.
John OwenRead
What I call a mimetic crisis is a situation of conflict so intense that on both sides people act the same way and talk the same way even though, or because, they are more and more hostile to each other.
Rene GirardRead
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?
William ShakespeareRead
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead