It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a hypocrite and dissembler. For men are so simple, and yield so much to immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

A prince... must learn from the fox and the lion... One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who act simply as lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.

To know well the nature of the people one must be a prince, and to know well the nature of princes one must be of the people.

The leader should know how to enter into evil when necessity commands.

A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.

Nothing feeds upon itself as liberality does.

One should never fall in the belief that you can find someone to pick you up.