---
name: "Machiavelli — \"Force or fraud\""
subtitle: "Wikiquote's quote of the day, sharpened from *The Discourses*"
date: 2026-05-03
link: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/May
source: "Wikiquote"
topics: [quotes]
tags: [machiavelli, politics, history]
---

"If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud…" Renaissance Florence's most accurate observation about how concentrated power gets concentrated, then immediately laundered into legitimacy. Wikiquote's main entry is properly cited; the line still does heavy work 500 years later.