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.

I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words toward anyone, for neither diminishes the strength of the enemy.

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.

Besides what has been said, people are fickle by nature; and it is a simple to convince them of something but difficult to hold them in that conviction; and, therefore, affairs should be managed in such a way that when they no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.

All the States and Governments by which men are or ever have been ruled, have been and are either Republics or Princedoms.

States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them

When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere.