Talk:Niccolò Machiavelli

I suggest that the "Attributed" quotes be removed until their authenticity can be verified, considering the many pseudobeliefs that are currently popular regarding Machiavelli and his work. It seems fashionable to think soley that Machiavelli was an extreme authoritarian (especially in the current political climate in America), which is debatable by the students of Italian history and political science, and I think these "Attributed" quotes do not well-reflect his varied work to an ordinary reader looking for knowledge on the subject. Naturally, I defer motion to my fellow Wikians. --AFasih


 * I agree. --GenkiNeko


 * I disagree. Ideally most of the "Attributed" quotes in articles will eventually become "Sourced" to genuine documentation. If there are quotes that are commonly attributed to someone erroneously, these should be pointed out as "Misattributions" within Wikiquote articles, or on the talk pages, as has been done elsewhere, such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, & Talk:John F. Kennedy. If anyone feels the selections that have been made are imbalanced, they should add some which provide greater balance, not remove genuine or attributed quotes they might simply feel to be "unrepresentative". I am now restoring some deletions that recently occurred ~ Achilles 10:08, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Original Source
Could one of the editors, who is literate in Italian, please locate in the original (untranslated) text the original statements, and add them on? See Francis Bacon's quotes in Latin for reference.

many thanks

One of the unsourced quotes
One of the quotes that was listed as 'unsourced' was "Men sooner forget being robbed of their fathers than of their patrimony."

I found a quote very similar to this (probably an alternate translation) in Chapter 17 of The Prince: "men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony."

I got this quote from a version of the book published in 1935 by Oxford University Press, Inc. I think that seems a bit dated, if someone else has a more modern edition / translation of The Prince, perhaps they could check it to see if they can find that quote in the chapter, "Of Cruelty and Clemency, and Whether It Is Better to Be Loved or Feared."

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Niccolò Machiavelli. --Antiquary 18:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


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


 * Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new.


 * 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 ability to execute, military plans.


 * A leader ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred.


 * Men sooner forget being robbed of their fathers than of their patrimony.


 * He who conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.


 * Some of them can be found in the original italian form here (above translations are quite accurate): https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=qZEHAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP16 --193.111.70.3 13:38, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Koestler's version (in Quotes section)
I replaced Koestler's amended version of Machiavelli's advice to Rafael Girolami with a translation of the original text, in context. Notice how Koestler's out-of-context paraphrasing of the passage changes it from an admonition to be as honest as possible within the bounds of necessary diplomatic confidentiality, to a recommendation to be as sneakily dishonest as you like while covering your butt. - Embram (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Any man who tries to be good...

 * Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

There's no shortage of image memes (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Any+man+who+tries+to+be+good+all+the+time+is+bound&iar=images), but without alternative sources as happen often with popular misattributed quotes. It seems to be (https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/16201.Niccol_Machiavelli) from The Prince. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 21:28, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

The Prince, Ch. 22
Whose translation is "The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."? It's not Ricci's or Marriott's. Mcljlm (talk) 14:00, 22 March 2024 (UTC)