It is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved? It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.

It is a true observation of ancient writers, that as men are apt to be cast down by adversity, so they, are easily satiated with prosperity, and that joy and grief produce the same effects. For whenever men are not obliged by necessity to fight they fight from ambition, which is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

In respect to foresight and firmness, the people are more prudent, more stable, and have better judgement than princes.

Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony

He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.

So far as he is able, a prince should stick to the path of good but, if the necessity arises, he should know how to follow evil.

Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.