Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception

Not Machiavelli’s words — a modern paraphrase Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527 · Florentine diplomat & political theorist
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The sentence appears nowhere in Machiavelli. Wikiquote ↗ files it under “Misattributed,” noting that it is falsely credited to The Prince and is “not found there textually,” and the writer Ian Chadwick, who searched more than seventeen translations of Machiavelli, traces the line ↗ to a 1982 magazine paraphrase by the journalist Edward Jay Epstein — who told him by email that it may have been just that, a paraphrase.

Last verified 3 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed wording — copy with the correction

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception” not Machiavelli. The sentence appears in none of his works; Wikiquote lists it as misattributed to The Prince, and the word "deception" does not occur in the standard English translation. Its documented ancestor is a paraphrase, set in quotation marks without a citation, in Edward Jay Epstein's essay "Disinformation," Commentary, July 1982. Machiavelli's genuine version of the idea is Discourses on Livy, Bk. II ch. 13, "That Men rise from humble to high Fortunes rather by Fraud than by Force." — Quotle.info, verified 3 Aug 2026

Can you use it?

We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Niccolò Machiavelli — Florentine diplomat, historian & political theorist. Theme: "Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What Machiavelli actually wrote

Popularly credited to
The Prince
Actually found in
None of Machiavelli’s works — not The Prince, not the Discourses, not the Art of War
Documented ancestor
Edward Jay Epstein, “Disinformation,” Commentary, July 1982 (paraphrase, wording “by fraud”)
Translation
Excerpt below: Ninian Hill Thomson, 1883 (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London)

I hold it as most certain that men seldom if ever rise to great place from small beginnings without using fraud or force, unless, indeed, they be given, or take by inheritance the place to which some other has already come. Force, however, will never suffice by itself to effect this end, while fraud often will, as any one may plainly see who reads the lives of Philip of Macedon, Agathocles of Sicily, and many others like them, who from the lowest or, at any rate, from very low beginnings, rose either to sovereignty or to the highest command. Discourses on Livy, Bk. II, ch. 13

This is the closest Machiavelli gets — the opening of Discourses on Livy, Book II, chapter 13, whose title Thomson renders “That Men rise from humble to high Fortunes rather by Fraud than by Force.” Note what it is: an observation about how men climb, not the crisp tactical order the internet puts in his mouth.

Magazine essay
Epstein, “Disinformation,” Commentary, July 1982
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, trans. Ninian Hill Thomson (1883), Project Gutenberg

How we checked

No rights status can honestly be asserted for the popular one-liner, because no author has been identified for that exact wording. The excerpt displayed above is Ninian Hill Thomson’s 1883 translation of the Discourses, long in the public domain; the 1982 Commentary essay that carries the earlier “by fraud” paraphrase is a modern work and remains in copyright.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Where the credit goes wrong

Three separate things get muddled here: the book it is stamped on, the words themselves, and the idea underneath them. Only the idea belongs to Machiavelli.

The Prince (written c. 1513, published 1532) Not in the text

Quote sites and social posts routinely tag the line “— Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince.” Wikiquote ↗ lists it under Misattributed precisely because it is not found there textually — and the word deception does not occur anywhere in W. K. Marriott’s standard English translation ↗.

Edward Jay Epstein, “Disinformation,” Commentary, July 1982 Paraphrase in quote marks

Writing about Soviet deception of US intelligence, Epstein said Machiavelli strongly recommended that a ruler should ‘never attempt to win by force what he might otherwise win by fraud’ — inside quotation marks, with no citation attached. Read the essay ↗. Ian Chadwick, who asked him about it, reports that Epstein suggested it may have been a paraphrase ↗.

Sun Tzu Different maxim

The line is often blurred with “All warfare is based on deception,” a genuinely separate sentence that Epstein quoted a few paragraphs further into the same 1982 essay ↗. Sun Tzu and Machiavelli end up sharing a caption that belongs to neither.

Machiavelli really did argue that fraud beats force — Book II, chapter 13 of the Discourses ↗ is titled “That Men rise from humble to high Fortunes rather by Fraud than by Force.” What people quote is a twentieth-century summary of him, not a translation of him.

Context

Why this one sticks

The reason this fake works is that it is not wrong about Machiavelli — it is just not by him. He devoted a whole chapter of the Discourses to the proposition that men climb “rather by Fraud than by Force,” and another, Book III chapter 40, titled in Thomson’s translation “That Fraud is fair in War,” which opens: “Although in all other affairs it be hateful to use fraud, in the operations of war it is praiseworthy and glorious.” A reader who has absorbed that will nod along to the one-liner without pausing, which is exactly how paraphrase hardens into quotation.

What seems to have happened is ordinary and slightly banal. In July 1982 Edward Jay Epstein opened a Commentary essay on Soviet disinformation by summarising Machiavelli’s force-or-fraud argument, and set his summary inside quotation marks. Quotation marks are the load-bearing error: once a paraphrase is punctuated as a quotation, every later hand copies it as one. Somewhere in the reposting the plainer, harder-hitting word deception displaced fraud, and the sentence lost its last tie to anything Epstein had read.

Force, however, will never suffice by itself to effect this end, while fraud often will.

Read the full story

The chapter people cite is The Prince, chapter 18, “Concerning the way in which princes should keep faith” — the fox-and-lion chapter. It is genuinely about deceit, and it is genuinely ruthless: “a wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him.” But nothing in it reads like the quoted maxim, and Marriott’s translation does not contain the word deception anywhere.

A full-text search of book databases turns up no printing of either wording before the 1982 essay, and the “deception” variant does not surface in books until the 2010s — which is consistent with an internet-era mutation rather than a lost translation. Treat that as a floor, not a proof: absence from a search index is weaker evidence than the direct textual check, which is why the textual check is what this page rests on.

There is one more strand worth separating out. Epstein’s essay also quotes Sun Tzu’s “All warfare is based on deception” a few paragraphs later, and the two lines have been travelling together ever since. They are different sentences by different people, and only one of them is real.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Wisdom Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Niccolò Machiavelli — Misattributeden.wikiquote.org

Lists this exact line under Misattributed, noting it is falsely attributed to The Prince and not found there textually.
A Machiavellian Mis-quoteianchadwick.com

The fullest investigation of this line: Chadwick searched his 17-plus translations, found nothing, and traces the saying to Epstein’s 1982 article.
Disinformation: Or, Why the CIA Cannot Verify an Arms-Control Agreementcommentary.org

Edward Jay Epstein’s July 1982 essay, containing the earlier “by fraud” paraphrase in quotation marks with no source given.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Liviusgutenberg.org

Ninian Hill Thomson’s 1883 translation — the real chapters on fraud (Bk. II ch. 13; Bk. III ch. 40), free and searchable.
The Princegutenberg.org

W. K. Marriott’s translation, including chapter 18 on keeping faith — search it yourself; the word “deception” is not in it.
Niccolò Machiavellien.wikipedia.org

Biography and publication history: born 3 May 1469, died 21 June 1527; The Prince written c. 1513 and published 1532.

The thought is his. The sentence is not.

About Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469–1527 · Florentine diplomat, historian & political theorist

Niccolò Machiavelli served as secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 until the Medici restoration of 1512 swept him out of office, and he wrote The Prince in exile the following year. He is the most quoted and least read political writer in the Western canon, which is precisely why he is such a magnet for invented maxims: anything cold-eyed and tactical sounds like him. His actual argument about deceit is longer, more hedged and more interesting than the one-liners pinned to his name — in the Discourses he praises fraud in war and in the climb to power, while insisting it is never glorious to break a promise you actually gave.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Sources

No source in Machiavelli. The line’s documented ancestor is Edward Jay Epstein, “Disinformation: Or, Why the CIA Cannot Verify an Arms-Control Agreement,” Commentary, July 1982, which paraphrases Machiavelli on force and fraud without citing any source; the popular “deception” wording is a later variant. Compare Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, trans. Ninian Hill Thomson (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1883), Bk. II, ch. 13 and Bk. III, ch. 40.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/never-attempt-to-win-by-force-what-can-be-won-by-deception/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied