Men judge more from appearances than reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
Everyone sees your exterior, but few can
discern what you have in your heart.
Quotes from Niccolò Machiavelli
Men will not look at things as they really are, but as they wish them to be- and are ruined.
Everything that occurs in the world, in every epoch, has something that corresponds to it in ancient times.
…the scepticism of men, who do not truly believe in new things unless they have actually had personal experience of them.
I certainly believe this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down. It is clear that she more often allows herself to be won over by impetuous men than by those who proceed coldly. And so, like a woman, Fortune is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity.
Let no man, therefore, lose heart from thinking that he cannot do what others have done before him; for, as I said in my Preface, men are born, and live, and die, always in accordance with the same rules.
Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.
This it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them, there is no longer a remedy.
Cornelius Tacitus when he says, that “men are readier to pay back injuries than benefits, since to requite a benefit is felt to be a burthen, to return an injury a gain.
A prince need take little account of conspiracies if the people are disposed in his favor.