He who becomes a Prince through the favour of the people should always keep on good terms with them; which it is easy for him to do, since all they ask is not to be oppressed

Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.

Is it better to be loved or feared?

The nature of man is such that people consider themselves put under an obligation as much by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.

You have to be a prince to understand the people, and you have to belong to the people to understand the princes.

Since the handling of arms is a beautiful spectacle, it is delightful to young men.

He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state and wishes to have it accepted, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones. For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities.