Whoever is the cause of another becoming powerful, is ruined himself.

How perilous it is to free a people who prefer slavery.

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised. . . . Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on good advice.

Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved.

Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.