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Who really said it

Politics have no relation to morals

Not Machiavelli's words — no source has ever been identified Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527 · Florentine secretary, diplomat and political theorist
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

No work of Machiavelli’s has been shown to contain this sentence. Wikiquote files it under “Misattributed” ↗, noting only that it “originates from an unclear source” — and the words moral and morals do not appear anywhere in the body of W. K. Marriott’s 1908 translation of The Prince. The thought is defensibly his: Chapter XV argues that a ruler must “know how to do wrong.” The eight-word slogan itself has no identified source — no first printing, letter or translation has ever been produced for it.

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

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“Politics have no relation to morals” commonly credited to Niccolò Machiavelli, but no work of his contains the line; Wikiquote lists it as misattributed. The nearest passage in the work it is pinned to is The Prince, ch. 15 (trans. W. K. Marriott, 1908); the nearest in substance is Discourses on Livy, bk. 3, ch. 41 (trans. Ninian Hill Thomson). Verified at Quotle.info.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Niccolò Machiavelli. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

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Provenance

The passage it usually stands in for

Status of the quote
Misattributed — “an unclear source” (Wikiquote)
Claimed source
The Prince
Nearest passage in the credited work
The Prince, Chapter XV, written 1513
Translation
W. K. Marriott, 1908 (J. M. Dent & Sons, London)
Nearest in substance
Discourses on Livy, Book III, Chapter XLI (trans. Ninian Hill Thomson)

But, it being my intention to write a thing which shall be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity. The Prince, ch. XV

This is the passage the slogan is usually standing in for — and the difference is instructive. Machiavelli does not say politics and morals are unrelated; he says a ruler who acts “entirely up to his professions of virtue” among people who do not will be destroyed, so he must know how to do wrong “according to necessity.” The moral vocabulary is still doing work. The slogan throws it out.

The Prince, trans. W. K. Marriott, at Project Gutenberg

How we checked

No rights status can honestly be asserted for the sentence itself, because no source for it has ever been identified — a wording with no known first publication has no determinable copyright history. The genuine texts quoted on this page are a different matter: Marriott’s 1908 translation of The Prince ↗ and Thomson’s translation of the Discourses ↗ are both distributed by Project Gutenberg as public domain in the United States.

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

What's actually wrong here

This is a three-layer misattribution: the wording is unsourced, the work it gets pinned to does not contain it, and it travels in the company of an even more famous fake.

Niccolò Machiavelli Misattributed

Wikiquote places it in the “Misattributed” section ↗ with a single line of comment: it is “commonly attributed to Machiavelli, which originates from an unclear source.” No earlier printing, letter or translation has been produced for it.

The Prince Unsupported

Aggregators routinely attach a book title to give the line weight — Goodreads credits it to “Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince” ↗ with no chapter or page. In the full text of Marriott’s translation ↗, the words “moral” and “morals” occur only in the translator’s introduction — not once in Machiavelli’s own text.

“The ends justify the means” Also misattributed

The two are quoted side by side constantly. Wikiquote calls it “the most common mis-quotation attributed to Machiavelli, which is never found within his works” ↗, citing Paul Rahe’s Machiavelli’s Liberal Republican Legacy.

The sentiment survives scrutiny; the sentence does not. Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗ states that “Machiavelli’s political theory, then, excludes issues of moral authority and legitimacy from consideration in the discussion of political decision-making and political judgment” — which is why the fake reads so convincingly. It is a fair summary wearing quotation marks it never earned.

Context

Why this one sticks

Machiavelli is the rare thinker whose reputation is famous enough to write quotations for him. Within a century of his death “Machiavel” was an English stage villain, and the shorthand has been generating maxims ever since — crisp, cynical, quotable sentences that sound exactly like what everyone already believes he said.

What makes this particular slogan durable is that it is not wrong about him, only wrong as a quotation. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts the scholarly reading plainly: “Machiavelli’s political theory, then, excludes issues of moral authority and legitimacy from consideration in the discussion of political decision-making and political judgment” ↗. So the eight words pass the smell test, and nobody thinks to ask for a page number.

Not wrong about him. Just not by him.

What he actually wrote that comes closest

The Prince, Chapter XV (trans. W. K. Marriott, 1908): “how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation … Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.”

Discourses on Livy, Book III, Chapter XLI (trans. Ninian Hill Thomson): “when the entire safety of our country is at stake, no consideration of what is just or unjust, merciful or cruel, praiseworthy or shameful, must intervene.” This is the closest Machiavelli comes to the slogan — and note that it is a tightly bounded claim about existential emergency, not a blanket divorce of politics from morality.

Both passages are argumentative and conditional. The slogan is neither. That gap is the whole story: the slogan drops the conditions and keeps the shock.

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Filed under

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

Power Character Truth

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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 — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists this line under “Misattributed” with the note that it “originates from an unclear source.” Also the anchor for “The ends justify the means.”
The Prince, trans. W. K. Marriottgutenberg.org

Full public-domain text. Searchable — the words “moral” and “morals” appear only in the translator’s introduction, never in Machiavelli’s text.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Liviusgutenberg.org

Ninian Hill Thomson’s translation. Contains the Book III, Chapter XLI passage that comes closest to the slogan — and nothing matching its wording.
Niccolò Machiavelli — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyplato.stanford.edu

Scholarly account of why the underlying idea really is his, without ever quoting the slogan.
The Prince (Marriott) — Wikisourceen.wikisource.org

The 1908 J. M. Dent & Sons edition, reproduced with its title page — the edition date behind the translation quoted here.
The quote as it circulatesgoodreads.com

A representative aggregator listing: credited to Machiavelli and to The Prince, with no chapter, page or edition given.

The true author, sort of

Who was Machiavelli?

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469–1527 · Florentine diplomat, historian and political theorist

Machiavelli spent fourteen years as second chancellor and diplomat of the Florentine Republic before the Medici restoration of 1512 cost him his office — he was arrested and tortured, then exiled to his farm outside the city. There he wrote The Prince in 1513, a short handbook on acquiring and holding power that abandoned the “mirror for princes” tradition of moral instruction, and the far longer, far more republican Discourses on Livy. His name became an adjective within a generation, which is precisely why sentences he never wrote keep arriving under it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Nearest passage in the credited work

Not located in any work of Machiavelli. Listed as misattributed in “Niccolò Machiavelli,” Wikiquote, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli. Nearest passage in the work it is pinned to: Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 15, trans. W. K. Marriott (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1908). Nearest in substance: Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, bk. 3, chap. 41, trans. Ninian Hill Thomson.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Politics have no relation to morals’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/politics-have-no-relation-to-morals/

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