Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

There should be many judges, for few will always do the will of few.

He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.

If someone puts up the argument that King Louis gave the Romagna to Pope Alexander, and the kingdom of Naples to Spain, in order to avoid a war, I would answer as I did before: that you should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don't avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.

When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty clothes of everyday, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world.

If the course of human affairs be considered, it will be seen that many things arise against which heaven does not allow us to guard.