Philosophy Quote by Niccolò Machiavelli — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“A sign of intelligence is an awareness of one's own ignorance.”

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.”

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

“A prince must not have any other object nor any other thought… but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.”

“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.”

“I think it was the institution...I was trying to master it.”

“I am, therefore I'll think.”

“Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.”

“Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.”

“A tree's shade is worth more than the knowledge of truth, my sons, for a tree's shade is true while it lasts, and the knowledge of truth is false in its very truth. The leaves' greenness is worth more, for a right understanding, than a great thought, for the leaves, greenness is something you can show others, but you can never show them a great thought. We are born without knowing how to talk and we die without having known how to express ourselves. Our life runs its course between the silence of one who cannot speak and the silence of one who wasn't understood, and around it hovers — like a bee where there are no flowers — a useless, inscrutable destiny.”