It is better to be bold than too circumspect, because fortune is of a sex which likes not a tardy wooer and repulses all who are not ardent
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Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But this must happen in such a way that no one becomes aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand, to be produced immediately
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Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years
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For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities. and are often more influenced by things that seem than by those that are
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Government consists in nothing else but so controlling subjects that they shall neither be able to, nor have cause to do it harm
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Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied
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War should be the only study of a prince
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