Niccolò Machiavelli

Some Poems

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

It is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved, if he is to fail in one of the two.

Injuries should be done all together, so that being, less tasted, they will give less offense. Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed.

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.

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.

He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss.

Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.

So as a prince is forced to know how to act like a beast, he must learn from the fox and the lion; becouse the lion is defenceless against traps and the fox is defenceless against wolves. Therefore one must be a fox in order to recognise traps and lion to frighten off wolves.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the marjority of men live content.

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Some Poems

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