"Machiavellian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1090 an exponent in the Persian Hasan Saba, a native of Khorasan, the son of Ali, a strict Shiah, who, finding himself suspected of heretical ideas, ended by declaring himself a Sunni. Hasan, brought up in this atmosphere of duplicity, was therefore well fitted to play the Machiavellian role of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... in the unsexed position of brother and sister. Thus that "maximum of temptation" of which Shaw speaks has within itself the seeds of its own decay. A husband begins by kissing a pretty girl, his wife; it is pleasant to have her so handy and so willing. He ends by making machiavellian efforts to avoid kissing the every day sharer of his meals, books, bath towels, pocketbook, relatives, ambitions, secrets, malaises and business: a proceeding about as romantic as having his boots blacked. The thing is too horribly dismal for words. Not all the native sentimentalism of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... that for religion; and therefore they that differ in the service of their God can never agree in the service of their country." With a maxim such as this, it was easy for him to maintain that Elizabeth's coercive measures were political and not religious. To say that he was Machiavellian is meaningless, for every statesman is so more or less; especially in the 16th century men preferred efficiency to principle. On the other hand, principles are valueless without law and order; and Burghley's craft and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... shy of parading her happiness; she disliked any demonstrations thereof, even before Johanna. And when Miss Balquidder, who had, of course, been told of the engagement, came down one day expressly to see her "fortunate fellow countryman," this Machiavellian little woman actually persuaded her lover to have an important engagement in London! She could not bear him to ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... peace. The socialist is sure that the motives to aggression will disappear. The new pluralist hopes they will. [Footnote: See G. D. H. Cole, Social Theory, p. 142.] Coercion is the surd in almost all social theory, except the Machiavellian. The temptation to ignore it, because it is absurd, inexpressible, and unmanageable, becomes overwhelming in any man who is trying to ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... my plan. I admit it was Machiavellian. My one desire was to remove these two dear people from Wellingsford for a season. Just think of the horrible impossibility of their maintaining social relations with the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... accused," he cried, "I forgive you for the fatal error you are about to commit, and which nothing can repair! We are the victims of some mysterious and Machiavellian power. Marthe Michu was inveigled by vile perfidy. You will discover this too late, when the evil you now ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... des troubles, qu'un tissu de faiblesse et de duplicite," etc. "Voila l'allie que le ciel a mis entre nos mains, et dont nous avons a retablir les interets!" Ferdinand was guilty of such monstrous perjuries and cruelties that the reader ought to be warned not to think of him as a saturnine and Machiavellian Italian. He was a son of the Bourbon Charles III. of Spain. His character was that of a jovial, rather stupid farmer, whom a freak of fortune had made a king from infancy. A sort of grotesque comic element runs through his life, and through every picture drawn by persons in actual intercourse ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... enumerated were all despatched before the era of Napoleon, and appreciation of their objects cannot therefore be complicated by doubts as to his Machiavellian designs. Bougainville's voyage, and that of Marion-Dufresne, were promoted under Louis XV, that of La Perouse under Louis XVI, and Dentrecasteaux's under the Revolutionary Assembly. Each was an ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind," said the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "It was vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here to Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was expensive. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Neither do I think this in casuistry and sin, because the swearing, undone man is a free agent, and can choose whether he will swear or no, anybody's wishes whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding: And in politics I am sure it is even a Machiavellian holy maxim, "That some men should be ruined for the good of others." Thus I think I have answered all the objections that can be brought against this project's coming to perfection, and proved it ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would learn to be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
