One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage

For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.

For as good habits of the people require good laws to support them, so laws, to be observed, need good habits on the part of the people.

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

It is much better to tempt fortune where it can favor you than to see your certain ruin by not tempting it.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

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.