Life & Wisdom Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli

Machiavelli’s genius here is his refusal to flatter the reader. He doesn’t argue that people are evil because he delights in gloom; he insists a lawgiver must assume it as a design constraint. The sentence is a cold blueprint: if your constitution only works when citizens are virtuous, it won’t work at all. “Presuppose” is the key verb. He’s not making a theological claim about human nature so much as demanding a political posture: build for worst-case incentives, not best-case character.

The subtext is a quiet attack on idealist statecraft - the kind that treats moral exhortation as policy. Machiavelli is writing in a world of brittle Italian city-states, factional betrayals, mercenary armies, and papal intrigue. In that environment, optimism isn’t kindness; it’s negligence. “Whenever they have free scope” sharpens the point: unchecked discretion is the accelerator pedal of vice. It’s an argument for constraints, counterweights, enforcement, and the ugly necessity of coercion dressed up as order.

What makes the line work rhetorically is its moral judo. By assuming wickedness, the lawgiver can reduce the damage wickedness does. It’s not a permission slip for tyranny; it’s a warning about naivete. Machiavelli’s realism is often mistaken for cruelty, but the intent is closer to preventive medicine: design institutions that remain stable even when people are selfish, fearful, and opportunistic - because sooner or later, they will be.