Men ought either to be well treated, or crushed.

Men are always averse to enterprises in which they foresee difficulties.

It is often found that modesty and humility not only do no good, but are positively hurtful, when they are shown to the arrogant who have taken up a prejudice against you, either from envy or from any other cause.

Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.

The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.

The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.

There is nothing that Nature seems to have inclined us to as much as society.