How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.

Hence it comes that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

He who would foresee what is to happen should look to what has happened: for all that is has its counterpart in time past.

As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained the fear of the prince, which temporarily supply the want of religion.

And what physicians say about disease is applicable here: that at the beginning a disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state; for by recognizing from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to the prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when, not having been recognized, they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure.

The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.

Is it better to be loved or feared?