I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
- Topic: Society
- Location: Lake Tahoe
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Niccolo Machiavelli
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.
The first method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
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 induction of a new order of things.
The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
More Quotes from Lake Tahoe
More on Society
The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.
What exactly is your 'fair share' of what 'someone else' has worked for?
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?
We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.
Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.
It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.
The purpose of Propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.
The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.